Why IN PERSON Meetings Are Important for Building Culture


  How can you build relationships and team culture in a hybrid or remote team? 

Unfortunately, the physical connection you get from being in an office is much harder to emulate online. If you are in a remote environment, having some sort of in-person meetup can create a substantially healthier and bonded team.

Philip also talks about how to best evaluate a company culture: talking to senior individual contributors (ICs). Managers may provide less value since they have something to sell.

More to explore: 
- Our masterclass on [How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech](https://link.jointaro.com/MvHfGDSzxwboGqBB8)
- [Why Slack Sucks for Team Communication](https://link.jointaro.com/JmHCagUPAFPSCtt99)
- Connect with [Philip Su](https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/) 

Make Sure To Get This Resource From Your Manager 1 on 1s

True or false: Your performance review result should not be a surprise, and the manager 1 on 1 is an instrumental mechanism towards ensuring that.

What are some ways to get the feedback flowing in a manager 1 on 1?

True or false: A simple "Do you have any feedback for me?" is a good way to ask for feedback from your manager.

One-on-one meetings are a crucial venue for growth-focused feedback. When approached intentionally, they can drive clarity, alignment, and personal development.

- **Feedback should be mostly positive and constructive**: Many people brace for criticism, but it's just as important to highlight wins. Sharing accomplishments helps managers advocate effectively during reviews or calibrations.
- **Effective solicitation matters**: Instead of vague prompts like “Do you have feedback?”, ask targeted, open-ended questions such as “How could I have handled that project better?” or “What would you have done differently in my place?” This encourages thoughtful responses.
- **Use self-reflection as a feedback tool**: Sharing your own doubts or observations (“I felt X didn’t go well—do you agree?”) helps deepen the conversation and opens the door to more candid advice.
- **Track progress consistently**: Keeping a running one-on-one doc helps you monitor growth, reflect on past feedback, and ensure you're aligned on expectations over time.
- **Avoid surprises in performance reviews**: By using regular one-on-ones to benchmark progress and confirm you're trending toward the right goals, formal review ratings (e.g., “meeting” or “exceeding expectations”) should never come as a shock.

Structuring Your Manager 1 on 1

If you are working in a strong, high-growth tech company, what is a good frequency to meet with your manager?

True or false: Managers are extremely busy, so it is best to have ad-hoc 1 on 1 meetings with them based on whenever they are able to find a sliver of free time.

Weekly one-on-ones with your manager are essential for staying aligned, especially in high-growth tech environments where priorities shift quickly.

- **Weekly cadence is ideal**: Aim to meet with your manager every week; bi-weekly is acceptable at most. Anything less frequent than that is considered a red flag for team communication and alignment.
- **30-minute standard**: A 30-minute weekly meeting strikes the right balance—long enough to discuss key topics, but short enough to stay focused and avoid bloat.
- **Avoid reactive scheduling**: Don’t wait until problems arise to schedule one-on-ones. Recurring meetings prevent misalignment and build a strong, consistent feedback loop.
- **Proactive relationship management**: Regular one-on-ones foster stronger relationships, clearer communication, and better support between you and your manager.

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 24] - Go Deeper: Follow Through

Start a career discussion in Taro: <https://www.jointaro.com/questions/create/>

Join Taro events: <https://www.jointaro.com/events/>

Come to Alex's Group Office Hours: <https://www.jointaro.com/p/alex-chiou/>

Related courses:

- [Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/nail-your-promotion-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [Managing Up: Build Effective Relationships With Your Boss](https://www.jointaro.com/course/managing-up-build-effective-relationships-with-your-boss/)
- [Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [Effective Communication For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)
- [Frontend System Design Masterclass - Building Playlists](https://www.jointaro.com/course/frontend-system-design-masterclass-building-playlists/)

Master The Behavioral Interview [Part 7] - The #1 Behavioral Interview Question

In life, many things follow a power law where a specific group of things are far more important than all the others. This applies to behavioral interviews as well. This lesson teaches you:

- The most important behavioral interview question you absolutely must know and the many forms it can take on
- How to answer it properly, especially if the true meaning is hidden
- What a great project to talk about during a behavioral interview looks like

Go through the "Project Credit And Scope" section of the [promotion course here](https://www.jointaro.com/course/nail-your-promotion-as-a-software-engineer/): <https://www.jointaro.com/course/nail-your-promotion-as-a-software-engineer/its-not-just-about-impact/>

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 6] - Having The Right Mentality

A lot of software engineers actually have all the necessary skills to pass the interview - They just choke when the time finally comes. Why is that? Well, let's dive into why. This video teaches you:

- The terrible unhealthy mentality software engineers often have going into tough tech interviews, particularly with top companies like FAANG
- What mentality you should have instead to unlock your full potential and why it's hard to ascend to this level of mental clarity
- How having the right mentality greatly improves your interview performance, far more than any amount of preparation ever can

From Layoff To Liftoff As An Immigrant - By Rashmi Kishore (Senior Intuit/Netflix SWE)

In August 2022, Silicon Valley engineer [Rashmi Kishore](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashmi-kishore-software-engineer/) was hit with something too many of us are unfortunately familiar with: Layoffs. She lost her job at Netflix and was immediately put under time pressure to find new employment as she was on a visa.

Rashmi was able to overcome the odds, and she's now at Intuit. In this session, she talked about:

- Quickly picking up the interview game again to land an offer
- Managing the stress of the layoff atmosphere and immigration issues
- Handling the logistics of being on a visa in the US

For more help navigating layoffs, check out our curated playlist: [\[Taro Top 10\] Navigating Tech Industry Layoffs](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/pE7pP0nXDx4X7mOChzHS/)

Why It Doesn’t Make Sense To Have a 5 Year Career Plan

Most productivity advice is about getting as much done as possible in the short term: *how do you optimize this week or this particular project*? How does productivity and time management fit into longer term career plans? How much time should be spent around planning your career years from now?

The answer is, **not very much**. Too much will change in 5 years to build your life around that: your experiences and attitudes may change, and the world will certainly change. 

Instead of working backward from the perfect job or career in the long term, it’s better to start with your desired lifestyle. 
- Where do you want to live? 
How much money do you need to make? 
- How busy will you be? 

It’s worth reflecting on what your desired lifestyle is, and check-in periodically to evalute if your goals have changed.

However, this is very different from setting goals. **A good goal is SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound**. If you have a goal which is more than a year away, it’s worth breaking it down into something which can be relevant and time-bound.

When you have established a goal of the proper time duration, you should spend 5-10% of the time in planning how you’ll execute on the project. For example, if you’re planning a project which will likely take 100 hours of work, spend 5-10 hours (a few days of work) in doing the planning behind it. 

Connect with Steve: 
- [Taro](https://www.jointaro.com/profile/aZJL3ucq9dQnscO09F4JDRkgPo72/)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered)

The MANY Benefits of Code Review (What You Didn't Realize)

In this video, we explore the deeper value of **code review**—going beyond its obvious impact on code quality to highlight how it shapes team culture, collaboration, and continuous learning. While improving code is a benefit, we emphasize that the long-term value lies in building a stronger, more aligned engineering team.

### Key Takeaways:

- **We use code review to improve code quality**: At a basic level, reviews catch issues and lead to cleaner, more maintainable code—but that’s just the surface-level benefit.
- **We treat code review as essential feedback**: Just like feedback in any other domain, having someone else evaluate our work helps us grow—technically and professionally.
- **We build team awareness and cross-pollination**: Code reviews help teams stay aligned and aware of each other’s work, which strengthens cohesion and product velocity.
- **We learn even when no changes are made**: Valuable discussions often emerge from understanding *why* code was written a certain way, even if the final diff remains unchanged. This raises the collective standards of the team.
- **We view code review as a cultural cornerstone**: We love it so much that reviewing code became a natural, even joyful, part of our daily routine—it’s how we grow, connect, and elevate our craft.

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/>

Uplevel Your 1:1s

1:1s are the bedrock for the budding corporate relationships you are entering into:

Three principles for effective 1:1s (see [Rahul's YouTube video on the topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADWkkJtZna4)):

- Pursue awkward 1:1s
- Go beyond status updates
- Write down takeaways

For important people, you should **never** run out of things to talk about. Here's a starting point for what to discuss: 

- Reflect on what’s going well and not going well for you
- Reflect on what’s going well and not going well for the team (and team priorities)
- Ask for opportunities or resources
- Give feedback or ask for feedback
- Brainstorm
- Career/performance review planning

Failure Mode: Fake Learning

*Fake learning* is when an engineer wants feels good by consuming an endless barrage of:

- Tutorials
- Books
- Blogs

These resources (crutches) are addicting because it's easy to monitor progress (40% done with the book!), but they turn out to be terrible for you to retain anything.

Software engineering is about action, not theory. Your goal is to reduce the amount of time from reading about a concept to putting it into practice in front of the computer. This is usually best done within the company, not on a greenfield project or external book you found. Get your hands on the keyboard, and realize that growth comes from discomfort.

Being New Is A Superpower

Instead of treating your newness as a liability, view it as a superpower.

- Nobody wants to be mean to the new person, so you have the perfect excuse to request resources aggressively.
- You can observe problems with the codebase, processes, or tools that tenured employees have learned to tolerate.
- You can connect the dots between different teams or ideas that would be harder for people entrenched in their roles.

Approach your onboarding with the urgency that "**You will never have fresh eyes again**."

As the most clueless person, if you revamp a resource (wiki, code, etc) to be easy to understand for yourself, you are making it easy for **everyone** to understand.

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 26] - Side Projects & Open-Source

You don't need to work at some fancy FAANG company to learn how to write truly good, high-quality code. Code quality is something that can be improved upon outside of your job and even if you don't have a job! This lesson will teach you:

- The power of **side projects** and **open-source contributions** when it comes to leveling up your technical skills
- How to build side projects that get a ton of users so you can maximize your learning (and your resume strength 💪)
- How to make meaningful open-source contributions that can even get the attention of Big Tech companies

To dig deeper into this topic, go through this thread: ["How to Learn/Practice Clean Code, particularly by oneself?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/6DcTkiS9UJhDkQz1HIAL/how-to-learnpractice-clean-code-particularly-by-oneself/)

Distinguished Engineer (L9) Describes Most Important Skill - Andrew Zhai

Andrew became a Distinguished Engineer at Pinterest through his 9+ year tenure at the company. He was one of 4 Distinguished Engineers in the whole company (1200 engineers).

- **Most important skill**: a deep understanding of people, business, and tech. That understanding is required to build trust from your team and the entire company to lead large-scale initiatives.
- **Advice**: Aggressively pursue impact. Being a Distinguished Engineer means that the company trusts you to tackle some of the hardest and most existential problems. Defining what those problems and getting the right functions involved is critical.

Here's the full playlist asking engineers what the most important skill is for their level: [Asking 7 Levels Of Engineers The Most Important Skill](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/J9Io5lDGaYUpI8vGrUyI/)

Helpful links:

- [Senior Director shares his perspective on role evolution at the executive level](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/Tr3bHl6mIVsmZZ6BAQLc/case-study-how-to-become-a-data-guru-as-an-engineer-w-senior-director-of-ds-mo-shahangian/)
- [How to write better code faster](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/iYpRj8XfyzCSaTYnce3y/masterclass-how-to-write-better-code-faster-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [The story of SWE2 --&gt; Principal Eng in 4 years](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/Lvf1TDKt1R4ZJSCr9BVv/rockstar-software-engineer-story-sw2-greater-principal-in-just-4-years/)
- Taro's top 10 to get promoted from [senior to staff engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/YD8LMCSlE71VUGUbNAWM/)
- [David Pan on what makes a great tech lead](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/uHqZZ15SK19MatEvLSO6/what-makes-a-truly-great-tech-lead-a-vp-of-engineerings-perspective/)
- [Andrew Zhai on Twitter (X)](https://x.com/ZhaiAndrew)

CRUCIAL Ingredient For Senior Engineer Performance: Assembling A Feedback Team

Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Be deliberate about who you request performance review feedback from: Don't just go through your half or year without a plan here and just request feedback from those you happened to work closely with at the end.
- Work backwards from how you want to be perceived at the end of the performance review cycle. Figure out the picture of your performance you want to paint and come up with the bench of peers who can paint that picture for you. From there, strive to build deep relationships with those peers (for advice on how to do that, here's [our course on Effective Communication](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)).
- Make sure that feedback isn't duplicated: You don't want to waste your peers' time by having them write effectively the same thing about you.

Don't Waste Your 1 on 1s. Build The Relationship

Why should you build the relationship in 1 on 1 meetings?

True or false: Small talk is okay in 1 on 1 meetings to break the ice and learn more about the other person's life outside of work.

Why are deep relationships needed in tech, especially at senior levels?

One-on-one meetings are a foundational tool for building trust and social capital within a company. Especially in medium to large organizations, relationships drive execution—and one-on-ones provide a structured, intentional space to cultivate those relationships.

- **Build social capital early**: Scheduling one-on-ones with key teammates—engineers, designers, PMs, and adjacent team managers—early on helps lay the groundwork for future collaboration. This “trust bank” can be drawn on when challenges inevitably arise.
- **Treat relationships as human endeavors**: There's no formula for connection. These conversations are opportunities to build real understanding, not just to exchange project updates.
- **Welcome small talk, especially at first**: In early one-on-ones, light conversation about emotions, hobbies, and general well-being helps establish rapport. This human connection builds the trust needed for deeper collaboration later.
- **Shift toward deeper conversations over time**: Once a working relationship is more established, focus should evolve toward more meaningful topics—emotions, motivations, and work challenges—while still leaving space for the personal.
- **Listen with genuine care**: The most effective relationships are built on authentic interest. It’s not enough to ask personal questions—true connection comes from caring about and following up on what others share.

By using one-on-ones intentionally and empathetically, it's possible to create strong, lasting connections that enhance both individual performance and team effectiveness.

Master The DSA Interview [Part 2] - The Key To Truly Learning DSA

One of the biggest mistakes software engineers make is memorizing content instead of actually understanding the concepts. This lesson teaches you:

- How to learn data structures and algorithms properly instead of merely doing rote memorizations
- What it looks like to truly master a data structures and algorithms problem, shown with an in-depth example
- Common patterns to remember with data structures and algorithms

Asking Great Questions [Part 3] - The Key Behind Questions That Don't Suck

There are good questions, and there are bad questions. One of the main ways to thrive as a software engineer is quite simple: *Ask **good** questions*. So how do we do that? This lesson teaches you:

- The key concept behind asking a truly good question
- Why empathy is an engineering superpower in general
- The concrete way to identify a bad question
- The concrete way to identify a good question

Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer [Part 4] - Stay The Course

It's incredibly easy to get distracted with random incoming tasks, especially at a fast-paced company like FAANG. This lesson teaches you:

- The importance of staying the course and sticking to your high-impact, ruthlessly prioritized tasks
- How to diplomatically push back and say "No" (saying "Yes" to everything is one of the easiest ways to destroy your productivity as a software engineer)

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.