Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 7] - Document As You Go

In system design interviews, it's essential to use multiple forms of communication—verbal, written, and visual. A common mistake is relying only on verbal communication, which can lead to confusion and missed opportunities to iterate on your design.

- Not writing anything down makes it difficult to follow your logic, especially when discussing complex systems. Without written or visual references, both you and the interviewer may struggle to keep track of the design.
- Documenting as you go—whether through diagrams, lists, or notes—makes it easier to iterate on and debug your design. It also frees up your mental resources to focus on solving new problems instead of remembering all the details.
- Finally, well-documented designs provide a useful reference for interviewers when they review your performance after the interview.

If you need extra help with your system design interview, [Formation.dev](https://formation.dev/partners/taro) can provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join us here: <https://formation.dev/partners/taro>

DSA Crash Course [Part 12] - Pair Sum Approach

In this lesson, Alvin explores the strategy to solving the following interview problem:

> Write a function, *pair_sum*, that takes in a list and a target sum as arguments. The function should return a tuple containing a pair of indices whose elements sum to the given target. The indices returned must be unique.
>
> Be sure to return the indices, not the elements themselves.
>
> There is guaranteed to be one such pair that sums to the target.

```
pair_sum([3, 2, 5, 4, 1], 8) # -> (0, 2)
```

```
pair_sum([4, 7, 9, 2, 5, 1], 5) # -> (0, 5)
```

```
pair_sum([4, 7, 9, 2, 5, 1], 3) # -> (3, 5)
```

If you need additional support taking these DSA skills and actually applying them, take [**Alvin's**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/) *complete* data structures and algorithms course on [**Structy**](https://structy.net/?utm_source=taro). You can try out the concepts yourself in their interactive code editor and learn advanced DSA patterns like stack exhaustive recursion.

Use [**this link to get 20% off**](https://structy.net/purchase?promo_code=taro20) the entire Structy DSA learning experience.

Follow Alvin on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/>

How Base Salary Becomes Insignificant - Tech Compensation Archetypes

**Equity** is the primary reason that tech compensation is so high. Equity means your employer gives you ownership in the company as a portion of your compensation. The idea is that this incentivizes you to work harder to have the company perform well.

For most of Senior+ roles in US-based companies, equity will begin to dominate your pay. (This is the hallmark of a top tech company.) Some examples:

- **For mid-level roles**, the equity in a company could be something like $20K - $100K / year. Senior engineers at top companies start to make almost an equal amount in stock as they do in base salary (cash comp).
- **For very senior roles**, the majority of the total compensation comes from equity. e.g. at the Director level, the ratio is around 2:1, so their base salary may be $270K/year, and their equity could be $500K/year.
- Compare this to a non-tech, old-school company like General Motors. The average pay for a Director of Engineering is $280K, which is great, but you could easily make that amount much earlier in your career within Big Tech. The reason for this gap is because General Motors is a lot more stingy when it comes to giving out stock to their employees.

The Common Misconception With Help

When you're new, there's an overwhelming amount of information to absorb. You should plan to ask many, many questions, which means it's important to have the right framing of that interaction.

Obligatory Confucious quote:

> The man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life

Myth #1:

- **Myth**: Asking for help is a sign of weakness ❌
- **Reality**: You’re expected to ask questions to gain knowledge and foster interaction ✅

Myth #2: 

- **Myth**: Everyone knows so much more than me, I’ll waste their time ❌
- **Reality**: Each person’s knowledge is incomplete ✅

Instead of thinking that building expertise in something is difficult or impossible, realize that **you can become more knowledgeable than anyone** as long as you narrow the scope appropriately. (e.g. "In one afternoon, I can go understand more about the flags to configure **git log** compared to anyone on my team of 10 people.")

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 9] - Don't Draw Random Boxes

In this video, we discuss a common mistake in technical interviews: drawing random boxes without considering the bigger picture. Here are the key points we cover:

- Candidates often create isolated components without thinking about how they connect
- We provide an example contrasting a disorganized approach with a more thoughtful one
- Our recommended approach: Trace through data flows and user perspectives
- The goal is to think like an engineer: Identify the right problems before proposing solutions
- **Our main advice:** Don't just draw random boxes, trace data flow to uncover key system challenges

If you need extra help with your system design interview, [Formation.dev](https://formation.dev/partners/taro) can provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join us here: <https://formation.dev/partners/taro>

How To Find Your Path Among The Countless Paths In Tech

As an early-career engineer, it can be overwhelming to figure out what technology to learn and which domain to dive into. In this video, Airbnb Director of Engineering [Rachel Zhao](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelzhao/) walks through the framework you can use to find your path.

The key to finding your passion is: 
1. Explore and refine. Give yourself some time + space to try adjacent areas.
2. Reflect on the various activities you do: What sparks joy? Think about both technical and non-technical activities.

If you want to learn more about this topic:
- [Figuring Out The Best Company To Join As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/Nqs0U6rt2qFyXKSZurTh/figuring-out-the-best-company-to-join-as-a-software-engineer/) - The former VP of Engineering of unicorn startup Mixpanel shares his thoughts here.
- [This Is How Software Engineers Should Initially Learn](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/wUl3hc2wr1ms493bd23b/this-is-how-software-engineers-should-initially-learn/) - This video covers how earlier-in-career engineers mess up their learning.

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 9] - Code Quality

Mid-level engineers are usually very solid at coding, but what most don't realize is how high the ceiling truly is when it comes to code quality. This lesson teaches you:

- The difference in code quality between junior, mid-level, and senior engineers
- What a senior engineer level pull request looks like

Become a code quality master by taking our course here: [\[Course\] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)

Managing Up: Effective Communication

Taro members get a discount to join [Ethan's Level Up community](https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/taro25)

Ethan's other courses on Taro: 

- <https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-growth-and-promotion-recipe-magic-loop/>
- <https://www.jointaro.com/course/maximizing-a-severance-package/>

DSA Crash Course [Part 11] - Most Frequent Char Walkthrough

In this lesson, Alvin walks through the python implementation for the *most_frequent_char* problem.

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/most-frequent-char?language=py>

If you need additional support taking these DSA skills and actually applying them, take [**Alvin's**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/) *complete* data structures and algorithms course on [**Structy**](https://structy.net/?utm_source=taro). You can try out the concepts yourself in their interactive code editor and learn advanced DSA patterns like stack exhaustive recursion.

Use [**this link to get 20% off**](https://structy.net/purchase?promo_code=taro20) the entire Structy DSA learning experience.

Follow Alvin on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/>

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 5] - Finding The Right Team

Not every engineering team can support an additional senior engineer. This lesson teaches you:

- What to look for in terms of product scope when choosing an engineering team to grow to senior
- The people ingredients of a team that's good for senior promotion
- Exactly what a great team for senior promotion looks like

To dive deeper into how to find a great team for senior promotion, check out the discussion here: ["What questions can I ask a potential new team?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/dLS6KcDwKNdMDlJwYdBw/what-questions-can-i-ask-a-potential-new-team/)

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 15] - It's Not Just About Impact

*"I'm not getting promoted because my manager isn't giving me the proper projects"* is one of the classic excuses of software engineers who want to get promoted but are definitely not functioning at the next level. This lesson teaches you:

- Why impact has devolved into a near meaningless buzzword
- The right mentality to have when it comes to picking projects and thinking about impact
- The 6 axes that determine how much you get rewarded for working on a project (only 1 of them is impact)

To learn more about identifying the best projects and prioritizing properly, go through this discussion: ["How to figure out what the most important projects are?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CgCPA60bDDHoOteN7Lmb/how-to-figure-out-what-the-most-important-projects-are/)

You did everything right. That wasn’t the problem.

Some people move up because they ask for more.\
Others move up because they already act like they own more.\
Then there’s the third kind—the ones still waiting for someone to notice.

If that feels familiar, this section will explain why hard work alone isn’t the lever you think it is.

**Want to go deeper?**

- Explore more tools and courses at [**Taha’s Method**](https://www.tahasmethod.com/) — from interview prep to leadership development.

- Follow me on [**LinkedIn**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahahussain/) and subscribe to my weekly newsletter, [**The Conscious Leader**](https://tahahussain.substack.com/), for more lessons like these. 

- **Taro members get 30% off** my flagship course [**Top Tech Leader**](https://bit.ly/tarotopleader)*. Discount available later in the course.*

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 1] - Introduction

Hi, I’m Andy​​! 👋 In this course we’re going to cover the most common forms of equity compensation and benefits in tech, break them down, and provide strategies and thought frameworks for helping you maximize them.

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Building A Career Without Applying To Jobs (From An Eng Director)

[**Daniel O'Shea**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieloshea22/) is a Director of Engineering at X (formerly Twitter) and a 3x exited founder. He founded Laskie in 2020, a platform to help people understand the job market, find full-time work, and take on moonlight gigs. Daniel built a robust job-matching platform with tens of thousands of candidates. Laskie was the first acquisition by Elon Musk at X (Twitter) in 2023.

Throughout his professional career, **Daniel has never applied to a job**. Instead, he leveraged his network to find opportunities where he had an unfair advantage, and then continued to seek opportunities from his jobs and professional network. Almost all engineers suck at this: sending connection requests on LinkedIn is not enough.

In this talk, Daniel will share tactical advice to better leverage your own network, along with lessons from his professional journey. He'll also share data from seeing 1000s of engineers looking for jobs as part of running Laskie.

- Daniel on LinkedIn: [**https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieloshea22/**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieloshea22/)
- Daniel on X: [**https://twitter.com/oshea**](https://twitter.com/oshea)

Additional expert networking resources:

- [**"How to network effectively in a tech event?"**](https://www.jointaro.com/question/wx6HewLcKbxNRfMBiAAI/how-to-network-effectively-in-a-tech-event/)
- [**"How do you network effectively within a company?"**](https://www.jointaro.com/question/DwT9GtdYK9nwFV3a7jrU/how-do-you-network-effectively-within-a-company/)
- [**\[Masterclass\] How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/tyaPFMXPoz2pmzB7OVzt/masterclass-how-to-build-deep-relationships-quickly-in-tech/)

[Masterclass] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager

Related resources:
- [Voicing Your Problems And Frustrations Productively](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/elIKuK5Ody0xzVNmdnsR/voicing-your-problems-and-frustrations-productively/)
- ["My manager and I don't see eye-to-eye. How can I improve this relationship?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/WWuU0HRpNu90J638iJPs/my-manager-and-i-dont-see-eye-to-eye-how-can-i-improve-this-relationship/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Hk6oEtLAKBKI3jF5SvB7bPGZHZMoxx79VJIoA3N3Bk4/edit?usp=sharing)

How To Figure Out If A Team Is Important To A Company

In this age of layoffs, it's important to choose a team and organization that is valued by the company overall. Even ignoring layoffs, it's better to join a team that's mission critical overall due to more career growth opportunities, especially as a software engineer.

Here's the core points from the video:
- **Profit center or cost center** - Does the company see your organization as core to its revenue generation or something it simply needs to have in a digital age? If its the former, that means the organization is probably better for your career:
  - **Profit center example:** The ads/search organization at Google
  - **Cost center example:** Website developers at a dental company
- **Growth trajectory** - In particular, is the organization scaling up its headcount quickly? If so, that shows that it's a company priority, and scope naturally appears when teams get bigger due to higher XFN and alignment costs.
- **Company visibility** - Do execs mention your organization in all-hands meetings? Better yet, is it referenced on earnings calls? The more an organization is mentioned in these more public communications, the better positioned it is within the company.

This clip was taken from our masterclass here: [[Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/0WEmTNZOMIh8xAdfO3JH/masterclass-how-to-choose-a-good-company-and-team-as-a-software-engineer/)

Related resources:
- ["How possible is it to spot red flags about toxic culture during the interview?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/1JwmhC3Nh9Ku0fkDL1bq/how-possible-is-it-to-spot-red-flags-about-toxic-culture-during-the-interview/)
- ["What does it mean to not have enough scope to be promoted?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/bJuagPwOEEy5vkcXKkqh/what-does-it-mean-to-not-have-enough-scope-to-be-promoted/)
- ["What should I look for in a new team in terms of growth?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/i2bOMPrqaRc0NUZ7918F/what-should-i-look-for-in-a-new-team-in-terms-of-growth/) - Question from a Google L4 engineer
- ["Is it better to work in revenue-generating divisions within your company?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/BIv8teCgxktk5tak6tlI/is-it-better-to-work-in-revenue-generating-divisions-within-your-company/)

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 4] - Structuring Your Growth

There are a **lot** of new skills you need to develop to go from mid-level engineer to senior engineer, far more than most people realize. So how does one process of all this? This lesson teaches you:

- The 4 Meta engineering axes and what they mean (we'll be using these to organize the teachings from the course).
- How to view the overall learning from this course
- Why the senior promotion is different when it comes to these 4 engineering axes
- The strategy you should follow to structure your growth journey, using this course's material as the basis

[Masterclass] How To Survive Tech Industry Layoffs

Layoffs: They will always be a part of the tech industry. 2022 was the first year of massive tech layoffs in the post-covid economy, and 2023 is sure to bear several more. Not even FAANG is safe with Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon all having layoffs in 2022.

There were a ton of important points from this masterclass, so here's our Top 5 (in no particular order):
- **Layoffs are effectively random for almost everyone** - Individual contributors (ICs) and more front-line managers are generally not privy to what happens behind the scenes with cut decisions. You can be a well-connected high-performer in a healthy revenue-generating org and still be laid off. It's crucial to recognize this reality and be at peace with it.
- **Stop freaking out** - Ironically, the worst way to deal with layoffs is to worry constantly and drastically alter your behavior to optimize for them. It's not healthy to go to places like Blind regularly to stay "up-to-date" with layoffs. The best way to deal with layoffs is to continue living your life as normal and double down on responsible software engineer behaviors. For more context on what those behaviors our, read this discussion: ["What are software engineering fundamentals?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3VNPK7wol76s89EkgFeW/what-are-software-engineering-fundamentals/)
- **Be deliberate with your performance review** - So many software engineers, junior ones in particular, assume that if they do good work and don't see any red flags, they'll get a good performance rating. This is very much not the case, especially at high-performance tech companies like FAANG. Maintain a transparent dialog about your performance with your manager and create a concrete growth plan. Here's our masterclass to help with that: [[Masterclass] How To Navigate Your Performance Review In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/b0B8uqIAUnBLE10jJHJG/masterclass-how-to-navigate-your-performance-review-in-tech/)
- **Build a stellar, wide professional network** - It is more important than ever to build meaningful, high-quality relationships in the workplace. Tech is an inherently collaborative space: You need a multitude of connections to help you grow, vouch for you in performance review, and provide warm referrals for your next opportunity if you are laid off. If you want to deepen your network, watch this: [[Masterclass] How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/tyaPFMXPoz2pmzB7OVzt/masterclass-how-to-build-deep-relationships-quickly-in-tech/)
- **Getting laid off isn't the end of the world** - There's nothing wrong with you if you're cut during a layoff. Don't dwell on how you messed up or what you could have better to avoid the layoff: Focus on your next step. The silver lining is that getting laid off opens the door to your next opportunity and likely comes with some time in the form of a severance package to allow you to seriously think about your future. To optimize your next move, check out: [[Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/0WEmTNZOMIh8xAdfO3JH/masterclass-how-to-choose-a-good-company-and-team-as-a-software-engineer/)

Related resources:
- ["How to survive potential layoffs?"](https://link.jointaro.com/zGwioWXPLe8xhuA89)
- ["What are the signs of an impending layoff in an organisation that can help an employee prepare themselves better?"](https://link.jointaro.com/tkUnst8KKBdktPQq5)
- ["Staying motivated among lay-offs?"](https://link.jointaro.com/g9462CQrqy1KGtqR8)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Uyf04xDGTweN0ija_Z3nr9NZ_WsoDikh_54LR5AfZjU/)

Negotiation Course: What's Best To Negotiate

As you think about what components in the offer to negotiate, you should consider: 

1. **Where do you have the most alignment with the company?** For example, reducing the "clawback period" for your signing bonus from 1 year to 3 months is unaligned since the company wants to incentivize you to stick around beyond 3 months. On the other hand, doubling your equity package is more aligned, since your comp will go up if the company does well.
2. **Where can the recruiter best help you?** Generally, a recruiter is powerless to adjust things like 401(k) match or performance bonuses since they're standardized across the company. However, recruiters are able to adjust salary or equity, especially if you are willing to make trade-offs between them.

Another dimension to consider is that equity is riskier than salary, so, therefore, it should translate to a higher potential reward. Stock options and RSUs fluctuate in value based on the market.

If you're ok with the risk tolerance, you are likely able to get more equity vs salary, e.g. increase your equity $20K/year vs salary $5K/year. This is an **obviously** good trade for a Big Tech (FAANG) company, which will have a fairly stable stock price.

Effective Communication Guide [Part 4] - Resolving Disagreements

- **Your goal with a disagreement isn't to prove that your side is correct; it's actually the opposite - Try to tear down your own argument.**
- Don't view the situation as a "Us vs. Them" mentality. It's not a debate that you have to "win". If you come in with this mentality, the other side will respond in kind, and you will never get anything done.
- Acknowledge the operating principles and incentives of the other side, and try to weave them into your approach as well.
- Example: Your designer proposes beautiful but overly ambitious design that cannot be done on the current aggressive build timeline.
  - Bad: "We don't have enough time to build these designs, so let's toss them out."
  - Good: "These designs look amazing! However, the timeline is pretty tight, so we may not be able to get everything within them. Can we get the low-hanging fruit with this intermediate state design to hit the ship goal, and then we can get the remaining design extras as a fast-follow? I really want to bring all these aesthetics to life, but I want to make sure we hit the deadline as well."
- Be comfortable with compromise and reaching a middle-ground that imbues something from both sides. It's possible that the other perspective is completely incorrect, but this will be very rare as people in tech are generally pretty smart. *You should very rarely treat your approach as one where compromise cannot be made at all.*

Tech Career Growth Videos

Our instructional videos provide software engineers with insights needed for career growth. Masterclasses go incredibly in-depth on a specific tech topic while case studies are real examples from established engineering leaders.