Maximizing a Severance Package 7/9 - Common Asks and Gives

- 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)

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

Amazon VP Shares Why Reorgs Happen And Why The True Reason Is ALWAYS Hidden

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who has gone through dozens of re-orgs across his tech career. 

Re-orgs (reorganizations of the team structure) happen because at least one leader views something as broken: someone is under-performing, the right teams aren't collaborating, or some other reason which you may not have visibility into as an engineer. 

Once a re-org happens, an effective way to build trust is to schedule time with your new skip level manager and ask what the mission of the team is, and if your work is still aligned to that mission. Ask your manager to setup a meeting if you can't do it on your own. 

Communication challenges: Public announcements about such org changes often use vague language and corporate jargon, making it difficult for individual contributors to understand the true reasons behind them. This lack of transparency can lead to further confusion and distrust.

Legal considerations: Legal constraints limit how much information leaders can publicly disclose about personnel changes. Fear of lawsuits can lead to sanitized messages that obfuscate the real reasons behind decisions.

**More to explore:**

- [**\[Masterclass\] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/2PbJb2fuqF3iMHy57eEg/masterclass-how-to-work-better-with-your-engineering-manager/)
- [How To Effectively Leverage Skip Level 1:1s](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/TToehFEc738PBhJcALwL/how-to-effectively-leverage-skip-level-11s/)
- [**Ask Me Anything (AMA) with a Disney Eng Director - Greg Benson**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/eHbg5nVkHn2LYJ55oOVf/ask-me-anything-ama-with-a-disney-eng-director-greg-benson/)

How To Supercharge Your Resume As A Junior Engineer

What's the best way to juice up your resume after you have gotten the basics?

True or false: As long as you can code and have a polished resume, that is enough to comfortably find a job.

Why are side projects such an effective tactic?

True or false: You can get something extremely close to work experience without having a formal job, all from the comfort of your own home.

So many junior engineers struggle for a very simple reason: They haven't taken the time to build real software. In this video, we talk about how earlier-in-career software engineers in particular need to stop dancing around the core issue and just start writing the code.

Here are the core points:
- **Resume optimization only goes so far** - At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how well your resume is formatted. If the underlying material isn't good, you don't have a real portfolio. If you are looking for your first job, this means that you need to be creative with what you put in.
- **Use side projects to create your own experience** - You don't need a formal company and work experience to write practical code that matters: You can do it completely on your own as long as you have a decent computer and an internet connection. It is easier than ever before for anybody to deploy their own app or website, all for free.

Related resources:
- [[Masterclass] How To Write A Stellar Tech Resume That Gets You More Job Opportunities](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/OnQV2V3J8DYVBBuGbZx6/masterclass-how-to-write-a-stellar-tech-resume-that-gets-you-more-job-opportunities/) - The full video this clip was taken from, which includes a link to Alex's resume
- ["What technologies or stacks should I create a project to add in my resume for entry level software jobs?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/c0DiG5ureLbkZ1mKD9Rf/what-technologies-or-stacks-should-i-create-a-project-to-add-in-my-resume-for-entry-level-software-jobs/)
- [[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/)

Effective Communication Guide [Part 7] - Finale + How You Can Learn More

- Zooming out, good communication is about *building positive energy*. Sharing feedback to help someone improve, empathizing with people's struggles, giving heartfelt thanks - These all generate positive energy.
- If you're feeling angry or frustrated, take some time to calm down and collect your thoughts, especially if you want to share that in a more public setting. After you've done this, then you can share your problems in a constructive way.
- This series just barely scratches the surface when it comes to communication. If you have any follow-up questions or thoughts, please start a discussion in the Taro forum: <https://www.jointaro.com/questions/create/>

Figuring Out What Matters In A Codebase

In a large codebase, the code will follow the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule): 20% of the components account for 80% of the impact. So your goal as the engineer is to spend most of your time on the 20% of code that matters to the business and matters to your coworkers.

How do you figure out where that 20% comes from?

- Talk to people
- Use blames to find hotspots
- Look for patterns in code reviews
- Look at past alerts and what triggered them

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/)

Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer [Part 8] - Touch Grass

Let's be real: Most software engineers are out of shape. While this isn't too bad early on, things quickly get worse. This lesson teaches you:

- How to get into exercising as easily as possible
- The many benefits of regular exercise
- A way to hack your brain to make yourself more likely to exercise

[Become A Go-To Person 4/18] The Benefits Of Being The Go-To Person

A course by [Jordan Cutler](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordancutler1/), Senior Software Engineer at Pinterest and Author of the [High Growth Engineer Newsletter](https://read.highgrowthengineer.com/)

Get a discount on Jordan's newsletter here: <https://read.highgrowthengineer.com/taro>

Why YOU Suck At Coding Interviews - From a Senior Engineer at Uber

[Edbert Chan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/edbert-chan-18a96950/) is a senior Android engineer at Uber. He wrote the popular guide “Welcome To The Coding Interview - You Suck” freely [available here](https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1eKirumpmwDWTtKCJKn2HuoQ2NavEfR41whmTyaQcio4/mobilebasic) (and [here are the slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vce04LepxDbu7K1ZyhtjVaSXC6Z0YYS9cAjNNztbEr4/edit#slide=id.p) presented).

If you want advice from Edbert, check out his AMA here: ["I'm Edbert, Ex-Apple current Uber Infra Android Engineer. AMA!"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/ftzODE689WYHw0FHGcl1/im-edbert-ex-apple-current-uber-infra-android-engineer-ama/)

This is a presentation about the common mistakes he has observed, and what you should do instead. Edbert believes that software engineers focus too much on the code and information during interview prep, and not enough on the engineering part of software **engineering**. Engineering is more than just coding, and a good interview process will be able to judge that.

The extensive guide is filled with practical tips for job seekers to pass the modern interview process at tech companies. Edbert covers the 9 mistakes that hold people back from passing technical interviews:

- Mistake 1: Not Putting Enough Time
- Mistake 2: Interview Approach Is Inconsistent
- Mistake 3: Your Interview Practicing Is Inconsistent
- Mistake 4: Not Fixing Your Own Mistakes
- Mistake 5: Not seeing how one decision or mistake leads to another
- Mistake 6: Not Understanding Your Own Solution Before Coding
- Mistake 7: Magic Bullets
- Mistake 8: Not Being Fast Enough
- Mistake 9: Being Full of Shit

Additional resources:

- [Ace Your Tech Interview And Get A Job As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ace-your-tech-interview-and-get-a-job-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [\[Taro Top 10\] Effective Interview Prep](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/HLBYxJI7D1j8STolrwum/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - Data Structures And Algorithms](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/V4sTACzfOh22nMVcUV3w/masterclass-how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-data-structures-and-algorithms/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - System Design](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/J3I9fTW9ulr6T9KjxpqY/masterclass-how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-system-design/)

Strategies To Stop Procrastination

Procrastination: We all become masters of it in school, and for almost all of it, this terrible habit will continue long into our careers. This video covers how you can combat procrastination and maximize your work productivity.

Here are the key points from the video:

- Break down your overall goal into smaller pieces and strive to do just 1-2 pieces of it per day.
- Write things down! Clarity leads to action.
- After every week, reflect on how you spent your time.
- Find an accountability partner. Pair with someone else and commit to sharing progress updates with one another every single day. This social pressure will motivate you to do work as you don't want to be the person going into that meeting with no progress.
- Introspect and ask yourself if you're truly excited about the thing you're doing. If you're not, you might need to find that true passion.

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] How To Manage Your Time Optimally In Tech And Achieve More Results](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/rnX9EKpzc43TgGW9MozG/how-to-manage-your-time-optimally-in-tech-and-achieve-more-results-792021/) 
- [A Powerful Tool For Software Engineer Productivity - Focus Blocks](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/uGdn2AiDfn3B07FkpIVR/a-powerful-tool-for-software-engineer-productivity-focus-blocks/)
- ["How do I optimize my sacred hour at work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/l8dzUVTu99CahofQsYAi/how-do-i-optimize-my-sacred-hour-at-work/)

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 34] - Don’t Be Weird

It is easy for software engineers to get desperate when looking for a job, and this can lead to things getting weird. The danger here is that if you're too weird, you can get automatically rejected. This lesson teaches you:

- How to send Thank You notes properly and how doing it incorrectly can lead to you failing the interview
- What to do if you were able to complete the interview problem just a couple minutes after the round ended
- The general framework to follow when it comes to post-interview communication

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 3] - What Makes A Good Tech Lead

Good tech leads provide immense value to their teams through a large collection of ways. This lesson teaches you:

- What it means from a technical skills perspective to be a good tech lead
- How good tech leads exercise effective leadership
- The mindset tech leads must champion

DSA Crash Course [Part 20] - Sum Numbers Recursive Approach

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

> Write a function *sum_numbers_recursive* that takes in an array of numbers and returns the sum of all the numbers in the array. All elements will be integers. Solve this recursively.

```
sum_numbers_recursive([5, 2, 9, 10]); # -> 26
```

```
sum_numbers_recursive([1, -1, 1, -1, 1, -1, 1]); # -> 1
```

```
sum_numbers_recursive([]); # -> 0
```

```
sum_numbers_recursive([1000, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1]); # -> 1001
```

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/>

Here's Why You're Doing Interview Prep WRONG

Most people do very shallow interview prep that doesn't actually help them learn. Lists like Blind 75 and Leetcode 75 are not enough to truly master the technical interview for Big Tech companies. 

In this video, Daniel proposes the "proper" way to master the coding / DSA interview so that you can walk into interviews and feel more confident. There are no shortcuts and no memorization -- instead, it's about going beyond the solution for a problem, and then understanding the nuances and process to get the right answer.

- Connect with Daniel on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko/)
- Checkout Formation as part of [Taro Perks](https://www.jointaro.com/perks/)

Relevant Taro content: 
- [Effectively Learning Data Structures And Algorithms (DSA)](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/XwpMMY3ss97zOrXJQ7Xr/effectively-learning-data-structures-and-algorithms-dsa/)
- [Struggling With DSA? Don't Worry, That's Healthy!](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/SPWYdMAu5XQX8ds9MxXc/struggling-with-dsa-dont-worry-thats-healthy/)
- [Masterclass on DSA interviews](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/V4sTACzfOh22nMVcUV3w/how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-data-structures-and-algorithms-7172021/)

Become An Open Source Master [Part 4] - Open Source Terminology: Projects, Repos, Issues, PRs

We'll focus on GitHub, a popular platform for open-source software, to understand key terms and concepts.

- Projects and repositories (repos) are the core units of open-source projects on GitHub.
- You can view source code, metadata, and community activity within a repository.
- Issues are used to report bugs or request features, while pull requests propose code contributions.
- Pull requests are reviewed and discussed by the community before being accepted into the project.

Connect with James: 

- GitHub: <https://github.com/jamesgpearce>
- Twitter (X): <https://twitter.com/jamespearce>

Asking Questions Is NOT A Sign Of Weakness

Believing that asking questions and requesting help is a sign of weakness is easily one of the biggest misconceptions among onboarding software engineers and just people in general. If you believe this, you are simply holding back your career.

Here are the core points from the video:

- **Nobody knows everything** - And because of this, asking questions is a fundamentally human experience. There will always be some corner of the ecosystem that you don't know, and this is especially true when you work at FAANG / Big Tech, even if you're very tenured there.
- **Liberally pursue support** - This is especially true when you're earlier-in-career or new to a team or company. As long as you're polite, humble, and empathetic when seeking help, you'll be surprised at how much support you can get and how happy your team is to give it to you. Follow the advice here to learn how to ask questions in this way: ["How do you overcome the fear of asking stupid questions / bothering people when you need help?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/vNE8kgpx2zdI1wACg9jA/how-do-you-overcome-the-fear-of-asking-stupid-questions-bothering-people-when-you-need-help/)
- **Minimize the time that you're a n00b** - Let's say perception is a problem and people think you're annoying when you're asking for help as a new team member. It's much better to ask a *bunch* of questions in a short period of time and become very independent afterwards instead of asking a few questions here and there and prolonging the period where you're an inefficient newbie for 3-6 months and dragging down the team. The latter would be *much* more annoying.

Related resources:

- ["How do I not bother people when asking for help?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/0Im1Kcgso1fJ8eAX3oOO/how-do-i-not-bother-people-when-asking-for-help/)
- ["How do I balance being more independent and asking questions?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/cLsgiARaD5kVmV1BvdUi/how-do-i-balance-being-more-independent-and-asking-questions/)

Understanding Performance Review Ratings

- The end goal of a performance review is to assign every employee a rating, which is like a grade in school.
- Know what ratings are good
  - What's average?
  - What puts you in the "danger zone" or on a formal performance improvement plan (PIP)?
  - Which rating is great?
- Understand which rating is necessary for promotion

English Communication Is The Most Important Skill For Immigrant Engineers

The field of engineering is filled with immigrants. Silicon Valley is famously built from the creativity and hard work of immigrants around the world (China, India, Israel, and much more).

If English is your 2nd (or 3rd) language, only or mostly speaking your native language at work will hold back your career. Rachel talks about her misconception that communication skills weren't that important, and how to improve your speaking + writing.

If you want to get better at communication, check out our course: [\[Course\] Clear Communication For Software Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/clear-communication-for-software-engineers/)

This thread is helpful too: ["How to improve my communication?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/omak9oOT4NJE9dhKeMZi/how-to-improve-my-communication/)

The Rare Insight Top Tech Companies Have About Engineering Managers

Most engineering managers [EMs] are bad and aren't much more than glorified, overpaid whip-crackers. Here's what the world's best tech companies realize about engineering management that other companies don't.

Here are the core points:
- **Good EMs think long-term** - It's really easy to burn out the team for short-term gains, just working them harder and harder so everything ships quickly. However, this isn't hard to do and sacrifices the future of the team. Teams run this way eventually reach a state of weak productivity due to high turnover and completely drained engineers. Good EMs strive to operate their teams in a sustainable way, taking care of their engineers while also pushing for velocity.
- **Good tech companies hold EMs accountable** - In particular, EMs are expected to uphold the overall health and integrity of their teams. Companies like Meta explicitly score managers on how well they are able to give their engineers growth opportunities, preserve their work-life balance, and shield them from thrash so they have the focus to execute.

Related resources:
- [[Masterclass] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/oeY7ncZhzJ5NO6dij5e7/masterclass-what-software-engineers-should-look-for-in-their-engineering-manager/) - The full video where this clip was taken from
- [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 do I figure out whether I should stay as an IC engineer or explore management as an EM?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Y6qIop9wpOlCYUL0nGs0/how-do-i-figure-out-whether-i-should-stay-as-an-ic-engineer-or-explore-management-as-an-em/)
- ["What are the commonalities and differences between tech leads and engineering managers?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/c3MLGlkQgOQ6OUHANAxT/what-are-the-commonalities-and-differences-between-tech-leads-and-engineering-managers/)

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.