Have The "Meta Conversation"

A "meta conversation" is a **conversation about conversation**. It's a conversation you should have with coworkers to discuss **how** you should communicate.

- How often do you want to meet?
- How often do you want feedback?
- What is your preference for written vs verbal updates, and the format?

You will be working with your manager and team for 100s of hours over the course of a year, so it's worth spending some time at the beginning of the relationship to understand how you can best work together.

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 19] - Code Review Feedback

If you want to grow lightning fast as a software engineer, you need code quality feedback. This is the primary goal the entire "Pull Requests" section of this course is building up towards. This lesson will teach you:

- The algorithm for leveling up incredibly quickly as an engineer, especially for junior and mid-level engineers
- How NOT to respond to code review feedback
- How to gracefully respond to code review feedback to maximize your learning and deepen relationships with your teammates by going through an in-depth example

If you want to dive even deeper into code review, check out our masterclass: [\[Masterclass\] How To Do Amazing Code Review](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/rhRFh49oouaUDhWUvkQb/masterclass-how-to-do-amazing-code-review/)

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 9] - Focus, Focus, Focus

A lot of software engineers falsely believe that having every tech stack ever on your resume means that you are the perfect interview candidate as you qualify for the most jobs. The reverse is actually true, and championing that strategy leads to massive gains in both your code quality and job prospects. This lesson will teach you:

- The real recipe for being highly paid and easily hired as a software engineer
- Signs that you have become a true technical master in your domain and are now ready to move on to other tech stacks
- How to structure your journey as an earlier-in-career software engineer (5 years of experience or less)
- How to navigate the junior engineer career trap that is "full-stack" engineer
- What hiring managers look for in engineering candidates, especially at Big Tech
- The overall technical mastery trajectory for software engineers and how you can reach the top
- Why focus is so important for your longer-term learning as a software engineer

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 7] - Code Quality Isn't Static

Things would be so easy if we could just copy-paste the tech stack of our favorite FAANG company and call it a day. The bad news is that this is a prime recipe for disaster. This lesson will teach you:

- Why there's no such thing as objectively "good" code and the primary vector stopping that (hint: It's the only resource that matters)
- The right mentality to have when improving your specific codebase in your specific situation
- How to think about your code architecture as it relates to scale

Senior Engineer (L5) Describes Most Important Skill - Richard Chen

Richard is a Senior Engineer (E5) at Meta.

- **Most important skill**: correct project selection. This requires balancing outcomes, priorities, and risks.
- **Advice**: bring people along with you. Careers are built over the long-term, so it's important to treat partners and work colleagues well.

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:
- Taro's top 10 to get promoted from [entry-level to mid-level engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/iBKHYpkjd0BRWWLKQG2j/)
- Taro's top 10 to get promoted from [mid-level to senior engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/AUMiBTvYUv0gcOzuu26V/)
- Taro's top 10 to get promoted from [senior to staff engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/YD8LMCSlE71VUGUbNAWM/)
- [Richard on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/r-x-c/)

System Design Series: Taro Playlists [Part 4] - Covering Edge Cases

The tactics are covered in the doc linked above, so this summary will focus on the "meta" context behind this part and additional commentary:

- You should *always* at least try to cover all the edge cases when building out a product, even if you're a small startup.
  - If you're at Big Tech in particular, you absolutely need to have amazing coverage on edge cases as even an issue affecting just 1% of users could be breaking the experience for 10 million+ people.
- A lot of edge cases are quite easy to cover and are low-hanging fruit. Bad engineers will be lazy and ignore these, supposedly in the name of velocity.
  - **Example:** You have a login form that takes in email. Instead of no-oping, throwing a generic error, or letting them login with an invalid email, validate the email upon submission and show an error message if it's invalid. This will almost always be a 5-10 minute change.
- There's many "playbooks" of edge cases, so coming up with edge cases isn't rocket science - It's largely a solved problem. Here are some examples:
  - **Generic edge cases that apply to any user input:**
    - Input is blank
    - Input is overly long
    - Input is very strong
  - **Generic edge cases that apply to any content collection:**
    - No content
    - A lot of content
    - Content fetch fails
- *Being very diligent around edge cases is also crucial for interviews, both DSA and system design, and is often how Big Tech interviewers differentiate the great candidates from the mediocre ones.*

You can [find the full system design doc here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15WaM8Ojan82g0m2mtz6kC2Hiyj0Q6VbjfqRmVNDI3qw/edit?usp=sharing) - Feel free to use it as a template for when you're designing systems at your job!

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 1] - Rahul's History With Procrastination

Welcome to our "20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination In 1 Hour" course! Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Your instructor Rahul Pandey goes through his personal experience struggling to get stuff done (and learning how to fix that)
- Focus on building systems that make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing, rather than relying on willpower
- The advice is tailored for people with autonomy over their time, not for those in reactive or manager-style roles

Manager vs. Maker schedule: <https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html>

Growth And Promotion 3/6: The Career Growth Recipe

The Magic Loop of Rapid Career Growth: a tested, simple process to grow your career. The “Career Growth Recipe” outlines a simple loop of five steps to advance your career: do your job well, ask how to help, fulfill requests, set goals, and repeat.

- 🎩 The Power of the Magic Loop: This framework emphasizes a collaborative approach to career advancement, fostering mutual support between employees and managers. By centering on shared goals, individuals can navigate their career paths more effectively.
- ✅ Performance Matters: Success starts with delivering exceptional work. Regularly assessing your performance through feedback can illuminate areas for improvement and reinforce your value in the workplace.
- 🤝 Building Relationships: Asking how to help is a proactive strategy that not only strengthens relationships with leadership but also positions you as a valuable team member willing to contribute beyond your immediate responsibilities.
- 🔄 Commitment to Tasks: Following through on tasks assigned by your boss demonstrates reliability. This commitment can pay off in terms of trust and future opportunities, making you a preferred team member for significant projects.
- 🎯 Goal-Oriented Conversations: Once trust is established, discussing your career goals with superiors can lead to tailored support for your ambitions, fostering a clear path to advancement.
- 📈 Continuous Learning: Embracing feedback as a tool for growth is crucial. It helps you identify blind spots and improve your performance, making you a stronger candidate for future opportunities.
- 💡 Adaptability and Initiative: Taking on tasks outside your comfort zone and asking for help when needed not only aids personal growth but also enhances your skill set, making you more versatile in your career.

Starting at Amazon as a Senior Manager, then Director, then Vice President, Ethan has decades of experience at top tech companies. This career growth course is developed from his own knowledge and input from his extensive network of fellow coaches and executives.

- Connect with [**Ethan on LinkedIn**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/)
- Taro members get a discount to join [Ethan's Level Up community](https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/taro25)

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 3] - Don't Try to "Prove Seniority"

In system design interviews, trying to prove your seniority by showcasing advanced technical knowledge can backfire if not aligned with the problem at hand. This video emphasizes the importance of focusing on the relevant issues:

- Avoid bringing up complex topics that aren't directly relevant to the current problem
- Demonstration of how a candidate can get sidetracked by discussing hot shards too early
- Focus should be on solving the core problem before diving into specific technical details
- We go through an example of a candidate who thoughtfully considers the actual challenges and bottlenecks before proposing solutions
- Success in system design interviews comes from identifying and addressing the right problems, not just showcasing knowledge

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>

Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer [Part 24] - Go Deeper: Follow Through

As mentioned earlier in the course, being a productive is a never-ending battle. You need to keep fighting, growing, and retrospecting to keep yourself in check and maintain your productivity.

Find accountability partners with Taro Networking: <https://www.jointaro.com/networking/?selectedServices=Friendly+Coffee+Chat>

If you can make it, come to Alex's Group Office Hours: <https://www.jointaro.com/p/alex-chiou/>

Find all Taro community events here: <https://www.jointaro.com/events/>

If you have a deeper issue, start a discussion in the Taro forum: <https://www.jointaro.com/questions/create/>

Take the related courses:

- [\[Course\] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [\[Course\] Effective Communication For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)

Master The Behavioral Interview [Part 6] - STAR

Behavioral interviews are ultimately an exercise in story-telling, something that many software engineers unfortunately struggle with. This lesson teaches you:

- The STAR format, how it works, and why it's important
- What to include with S(ituation)
- What to include with T(ask)
- What to include with A(ction)
- What to include with R(esult)
- What a stellar behavioral interview answer following the STAR format looks like

[Distributed Systems Deep Dive] Design a KV such as Dynamo DB

This is a session on DynamoDB if you're looking to understand how to design a distributed key-value stores. We'll start with what DynamoDB is and why people are using it. Expect a run-through of its architecture and a straightforward explanation of how data gets sliced for efficiency. We'll also cover what happens when things go south and how DynamoDB keeps data consistent and up-to-date as well as the pros and cons.

If you write code and care about making it scale, this will be worth your time.\
\
**Dynamo Basics:** Understand what DynamoDB is built for and when to use it over other databases.

1. **Architecture:** Get to grips with DynamoDB's architecture - how it's built to scale effortlessly and provide consistent performance.

2. **Data Handling:** Learn about partitioning strategies that spread data across nodes effectively and replication techniques that prevent data loss.

3. **Resolving Conflicts:** Master vector clocks for resolving data conflicts in a system designed for eventual consistency.

4. **Operational Workflow:** Gain insight into the lifecycle of 'put' and 'get' operations and how DynamoDB handles data under the hood.

5. **Merkle Trees:** Understand how DynamoDB uses Merkle trees to synchronize data across distributed systems efficiently.

6. **Gossip Protocol:** Learn the workings of the gossip protocol for node communication and how it contributes to DynamoDB's robustness.

Thanks to [Alex Poon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thealexpoon/) for leading this session!

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 10] - Sweat The Details, Call Out Edge Cases

Building software that "works" is easy. Building software that truly works in all viable scenarios is hard and what separates the great engineers from the mediocre ones, especially at Big Tech. This lesson will teach you: 

- Why mistakes are extremely punishing in software
- The relationship between the happy flow and edge cases
- Why being detail-oriented is an extremely valuable asset in tech, especially for your code quality
- The mental framework to have as a software engineer to proactively call out edge cases in a systematic way

The Journey to Staff Engineer In Big Tech - Q&A

This is the Q&A portion of the Staff Engineer Panel discussion. Watch the [main content here](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/SaYyJGLYvrAy4XGrDhy7/the-journey-to-staff-engineer-in-big-tech-panel-discussion/).

The journey to Staff Engineer is unique for everybody. In this session, we talk about all the ways we got there! Senior Engineer is a terminal level at most tech companies. 

Staff Engineer is the next level up. This is referred to as Staff at Meta/Google, or Principal Engineer at Amazon/Microsoft. 

Questions answered in the video: 
- I'm making a career change into Software Engineering -- what advice would you have? I want to get into Augmented/Virtual Reality.
- I'm already a Staff Engineer, but I'm struggling with performance management. What advice would you have to exceed expectations?
- What resources would you recommend to improve at communication? What is an effective way to find a mentor?
- I'd like to first become a Tech Lead (TL) and then transition into a Staff Engineer role. What advice would you have for me?
- I'm a Data Engineer (DE) and big fan of Zach! How do I show the impact of my work to a manager who may be unfamiliar, especially since I don't do frontend?

See discussions about Staff Engineers on Taro: [https://www.jointaro.com/topic/staff-engineer/](https://www.jointaro.com/topic/staff-engineer/)

Publicly available promotion stories:
- [Ryan's Instagram video processing improvements](https://engineering.fb.com/2022/11/04/video-engineering/instagram-video-processing-encoding-reduction/)
- [Rahul's internal tool for debugging](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/qvp2quodqAEWSkN7sayt/case-study-building-a-meta-internal-tool-to-empower-an-entire-org-staff-promotion-story/)

Panelists:
- [Zach Wilson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/eczachly/)
- [Rahul Pandey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/)
- [Carly Taylor](https://www.linkedin.com/in/carly-taylor-data/)
- [Lee McKeeman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmckeeman/)
- [Ryan Peterman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/)

[Case Study] Building An App With 1,000,000+ Users To Get Into Facebook

If you want to hear an in-depth \~30 minute breakdown of Alex's entire journey getting the Facebook offer, watch our video here: [How Alex Got Into Meta With 0 Prior LeetCode Experience](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/ZYiTbN21FsqFxFdpwt5a/how-alex-got-into-meta-with-0-prior-leetcode-experience/)

To learn more about how to build effective side projects, check out these resources:
- [[Masterclass] How To Come Up With 100k+ Users App Ideas You Can Build For Free](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/AI4zi759PSGn6RwIFT6f/masterclass-how-to-come-up-with-100k-users-app-ideas-you-can-build-for-free/)
- [[Masterclass] How To Build And Grow Tech Products To 500k+ Users For Free](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/OEuX0KMhcnNSTJ50Voee/masterclass-how-to-build-and-grow-tech-products-to-500k-users-for-free/)
- ["How Long to Crank Out a Decent Side Project?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/QA6lCGdPpwAd3xRrpjZ7/how-long-to-crank-out-a-decent-side-project/)
- [How Alex Made An App That Got 80k+ Users In 1 Month](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/GlSjjLhuUdHt5drq3l5F/how-alex-made-an-app-that-got-80k-users-in-1-month/)
- [Presentation slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MJU_LPnfc_QEu7386eSFvIbopG2VVUE3lTzkA458bYU/edit?usp=sharing)

If you want to dive deeper into the Random Name Picker app:
- [Download it on Google Play](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.randomappsinc.studentpicker)
- [GitHub Source Code](https://github.com/Gear61/Random-Name-Picker)

The Biggest Benefit Of Working At Big Tech - Learning Proper Engineering Skills

We all know how powerful Big Tech is when it comes to its top-of-market compensation and resume power. However, there is a much bigger long-term benefit these prestigious companies have when it comes to software engineers.

Here are the core points from the video:
- **Big Tech is stellar at teaching proper engineering** - You simply can't reach 100 million+ users without being great at software engineering. These companies have the experience and history to show software engineers how things should be done.
- **You will be pushed to be better** - Big Tech invests billions in hiring the absolute best tech talent in the world. In order to ship quality products at scale, these engineers push each other constantly to do the right thing. When you work at Big Tech, you become a part of this process and peer pressure.
- Here are just some of the ways this learning manifests:
  - Thorough release process with staged rollout and deep analytics
  - Code review where you get tons of comments on how to improve
  - Great internal tooling showing you what parts of the engineering experience can be made seamless

Related resources:
- ["How do I get better at building Large scale systems without working directly on such projects?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/k9MR0UBCtVXvyZrOdPLw/how-do-i-get-better-at-building-large-scale-systems-without-working-directly-on-such-projects/)
- ["How to Learn/Practice Clean Code, particularly by oneself?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/6DcTkiS9UJhDkQz1HIAL/how-to-learnpractice-clean-code-particularly-by-oneself/)
- ["What are the best resources to learn system design in a structured way?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/SeCsb4IRTijs2hg4XHxo/what-are-the-best-resources-to-learn-system-design-in-a-structured-way/)

[Case Study] Maximizing SWE Growth: Ownership and Specialization At Startups

**Huge** thanks to [Henry Prior](https://www.linkedin.com/in/henryprior/) for joining us and sharing his perspective and insights!

This was a *massive* session, so here are just some of the highlights:
- **Henry's core learning**: Bias towards action. You aren't really going to truly understand what is and what isn't fruitful to you until you just start trying things.
- **Story #1** - At his first startup job, Henry found a project to upgrade from Tensorflow 1 to 2. This ended up moving the metric he cared about, but he found out later that the business impact wasn't great. The company's clients were non-technical and didn't really care about the company's model being ultra-accurate.
- **Story #2** - Found a reinforcement learning project at his next company where he did all the modeling on his own and worked closely with an infra engineer to ship. The work was very complex and had huge impact, saving ~25 hours per week in Data Scientist cycles. He got massive recognition from the company, and this project was a big part of his move to senior.
- You have a lot of autonomy in early stage startups. Take advantage of this and actively look for large problems to solve, doing so as early as the interview process. It's not like Big Tech where you are generally given a good amount of direction on what to do (at least until you get to staff).
- *It's in your best interest to be completely authentic when interviewing with a startup.* It's not like Big Tech where you're putting on a facade to meet their interview requirements. A startup might not be the right for you due to a lack of work in your interest area: Big Tech in contrast has a little bit of everything.
- *If you're going to get into machine learning, you should understand the underlying math first.* This puts you in a much better position to work on the modeling part of ML vs. the more tertiary tasks like data wrangling. The math is a combination of probability/statistics, linear algebra, and calculus.
- **You can't study your way to being good at system design.** Resources like books and blog posts help, but system design is something you very much have to get good at by doing. Instead of just leaping into the code, start planning out your tasks and doing technical writing. From there, share your material with your team and get feedback.

Related resources:
- ["What's the difference between Big Tech and startups in terms of learning and growth?"](https://link.jointaro.com/yzWgzTF4WFzfXjS29)
- ["Does it make sense for me to choose a specialization like ML? If so, what's the impact?"](https://link.jointaro.com/jV34Jz7cJqQv2MpD8)

Why Great Engineering Managers Are Like Captain America

There is far more to software engineering than shipping code. A truly effective engineering manager needs to step up with these issues to protect the team.

Here are the core points from the video:

- **A good engineering manager is a shield** - In particular, engineering managers should handle non-technical issues like politics and organizational thrash, abstracting that pain away from their engineers so they have the clarity to execute.
- **Alex's Manager Shielding Story** - When Alex joined his team at Robinhood, the product roadmap wasn't very clear. There definitely wasn't enough well scoped out work for the team to work on. To shield the team from this product direction thrash, he created a high-impact infrastructure project for the team to work on, giving them the scope necessary to not get destroyed in performance review from doing nothing.

If you're interested in how Alex led that Robinhood infrastructure project despite being new to the company, watch his case study about it here: [\[Case Study\] Becoming A Tech Lead Again In Just 1 Month After Joining Robinhood From Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/X8vpfJooDpsX915ouC00/case-study-becoming-a-tech-lead-again-in-just-1-month-after-joining-robinhood-from-meta/)

Related resources:

- [How Do Effective Engineering Leaders Help Their Teams Achieve More?](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xGJDCG7VL4hcZaq5XL92/how-do-effective-engineering-leaders-help-their-teams-achieve-more/)
- ["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/)

Good Engineering Managers Simply Care

- A good manager understands that if your personal life isn't going well, your work performance will almost certainly be negatively affected.
- This is why good EMs genuinely care about how you're doing as a person.
  - In 1:1s, they will always listen intently.
  - If you're not doing well, they will allocate extra time to help you figure things out and just to be there to support you.

Related resources:
- ["What's the boundary between what's okay to share with your manager vs. what's not? Are some things simply too deep?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3L4B8iqM7D5GYsYy6xWx/whats-the-boundary-between-whats-okay-to-share-with-your-manager-vs-whats-not-are-some-things-simply-too-deep/)
- [1 on 1s Are The Time To Be Awkward](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xjeFRpp5YHxG9TTK8wjn/1-on-1s-are-the-time-to-be-awkward/?revalidate=true)

Why Becoming A Good Engineering Manager Is So Hard

Becoming an engineering manager (EM) is a major career shift that’s both difficult to achieve and hard to excel at. This video outlines why the role is rare, what background is typically required, and how drastically different it is from being a software engineer.

- **EMs are in short supply**: The pool of strong engineering managers is even smaller than that of strong engineers, making it hard for companies to hire great EMs.
- **Strong engineering background is essential**: Most capable EMs started out as senior or staff-level engineers, often operating as tech leads before transitioning into management.
- **High entry barriers**: Given the requirement for both technical excellence and people skills, very few engineers are qualified to move into the EM role.
- **Only 20% skill transfer**: On average, just a fifth of the skills from a software engineering background apply directly to engineering management—making the job feel brand new.
- **Steep learning curve**: Many new EMs are surprised at how little their past experience as engineers prepares them for the demands of management, which requires a vastly different skill set.

Related resources:

- [\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [\[Case Study\] Mentoring Junior SWEs \[E3\] to Senior \[E5\] In Just 2.5 Years At Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/EX9563YnxcJb62cCmetg/case-study-mentoring-junior-swes-e3-to-senior-e5-in-just-25-years-at-meta/)

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.