[Case Study] Building A Meta Internal Tool To Empower An Entire Org: Staff Promotion Story

- Debugging was a huge pain point for the Facebook Portal org.
- To fix this, Rahul built a tool that made it far easier to debug tricky Android issues (Portal runs a fork of Android). It took all the crazy dump files from Android bugs and extracted the insights.
- Rahul started off the tool with an *extremely* simple interface: Upload the massive dump file and it would extract insights. He would improve it later by making it so the user only needed the bug ID.
- The tool started off with around 100 engineers using it and then grew to 250+! This massive scope was enough to get Rahul AE (additional equity) and a promotion to E6 (Staff at Meta).
- How you can incorporate these learnings into your work:
  - Look internally for opportunity. There are ways to have impact besides shipping flashy products, and in Big Tech in particular, improving engineering efficiency can be a *huge* win given how many engineers there are!
  - Understand the pain of your peers. Not only is this just a kind, empathetic thing to do that builds relationships, pain often comes with opportunity.
  - Think outside your stack. Instead of working forward from your stack of choice and what you can do with that, zoom out and holistically look at problems across your org in general. It's cheap to learn other stacks to build solutions - The main thing to do is identify problems.
- Here's [a link to the slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Scxll_pApdPLXk42jSHcrZ4LaTE8_7BUjvB14z9-SgU/edit?usp=sharing).

Related resources:
- [[Case Study] Effective Communication: Leading A Multi-Org Re-architecture At Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/Rovw6IfITXGr55NdftFw/case-study-effective-communication-leading-a-multi-org-re-architecture-at-meta/)
- [What's the Difference Between A Senior And Staff Engineer?](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/FzvHLUprcYonudsxnJc2/whats-the-difference-between-a-senior-and-staff-engineer/)
- ["I would like to get more clarity on what a Staff-level project and execution look like."](https://www.jointaro.com/question/RQa5tsnXnZr6Xg1ziv0X/i-would-like-to-get-more-clarity-on-what-a-staff-level-project-and-execution-look-like/)

Effective Communication Guide [Part 1] - Core High-level Principles

Software engineers are notorious for their poor soft skills, often thinking that being able to write decent code while isolated in a corner is all they need to succeed. This couldn't be further from the truth. Communication in particular is crucial for software engineer career development, especially to senior and staff level. This lesson teaches you:

- **Communication is fundamentally an exercise in empathy** - The entire goal of communication is to align with or win over another human being in some way.
  - Strive to put yourself in the shoes of the person you're communicating with. Try to see the world through their eyes.
  - What are their values? What makes them happy? What are they struggling with? What do they care about? What's their background?
- **Understand others' incentives** - This is especially important in a corporate environment where every employee has some incentives they're pursuing. This will often times manifest as what are the values of the other person's org and even more concretely, *what they get rewarded for in performance review*.
- **Over-communication &gt;&gt;&gt; Under-communication** - Under-communication's downside is that people are not aligned, which usually leads to lots of thrash and wasted work. That is much, much worse than the failure mode of over-communication, which is that you're a bit annoying (and this can be easily toned down and fixed). If you're trying to get better at communication, push for the over-communication extreme: Chances are, you will never reach it. It is *very rare* for someone to be communicating too much - Most people will appreciate the increased availability of information.

Related resources:

- [The Crucial First Step To Building Relationships That Everyone Misses](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/YPniDFNQqoHEpYHC9JEq/the-crucial-first-step-to-building-relationships-that-everyone-misses/)
- [Stop Getting Ghosted With Your Reachouts - How To Write A Great Cold Message](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/eZRHXEpxdJjcxK2aQTWl/stop-getting-ghosted-with-your-reachouts-how-to-write-a-great-cold-message/)
- [I Sucked At This For 25 Years As An Engineer – 8 Tips For Communication](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/s0vZkFtwe3x4tALbdbEr/i-sucked-at-this-for-25-years-as-an-engineer-8-tips-for-communication/)

Having The Proper Mentality For Manager 1 on 1s

True or false: Your manager is your superior, so it is on them to ask the right questions and figure out what you need in your 1 on 1 meetings. You just need to show up on time.

Why is the burden on you to set the agenda and overall plan with your manager 1 on 1s?

True or false: It is better for your career growth to view your manager as being a resource for you instead of you being a resource for your manager.

True or false: A good manager 1 on 1 involves you giving status updates and then waiting for instruction on what to do next.

- *Your manager is a resource for you.*
- Don't just see your manager as a source of authority that gives you work. While this is true to some extent, having this mentality really holds back your growth.
- Go into your manager 1 on 1s with a plan on how you can extract the most value from them.
  - This onus is on you to set the agenda for this meeting, so you can get insights from your manager on how to best improve yourself. Let them know about this agenda beforehand, so they can think about how to best help you with each point.
  - Another way of seeing this is how can you make your manager's life easier. By setting the stage for your manager, you lower the barrier for them helping you as they don't need to figure out exactly what your work life looks like and what problems you have.
- A common failure mode for earlier-in-career engineers going into manager 1 on 1s is they go in, give a status update on what they're doing, and wait for more work to be given to them.

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] How To Have Impactful 1 on 1 Meetings](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/FEK6JZqW2Jg3rdN9yeGn/masterclass-how-to-have-impactful-1-on-1-meetings/)
- [\[Course\] Effective Communication For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)

DSA Crash Course [Part 18] - Recursion Intro Lecture

In this lecture, Alvin introduces the mental model we should use when applying recursion.

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/>

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 1] - How This Course Works

Switching jobs is great, but it can only get you so far. *The true foundation of any ultra-successful tech career is promotion.* However, promotion gets a bad reputation as it's sorely misunderstood, both by individual engineers and entire tech companies. This course is here to demystify promotion and teach you how to go through it as efficiently as possible. Here are the core parts of the lesson:

- Your instructor [Alex Chiou](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-chiou/) walks you through his extensive 10+ year Silicon Valley background with rapid career advancement, ending up as a high-performing tech lead making $750k at Robinhood. More importantly, he goes through how he was able to grow his mentees to lightning fast promotions, particularly at Meta where he grew new-grads (E3) to high-performing senior engineers (E5) with \~$500k TC by their mid-20s (far faster than Alex himself!).
- You'll understand why promotion is underrated and critically important to a successful tech career with serious longevity. You'll also understand why constantly going on the interview grind is way worse than pursuing organic promotions when possible.
- We walk you through the course objectives. By the end of the course, you will understand:
  - 💡 How promotion **actually works**, particularly at top companies
  - 🧠 The framework to understand the **senior engineering career ladder**
  - 📃 How to define a **clear plan** to get to the next level
  - ✅ What it takes to get **maximum credit** for every project
  - 🚀 What it means to master your performance review and produce the **best promo packet**

If you want to learn how Alex was able to grow his mentee engineers ⚡ fast (more than 2x quicker than industry average), check out his deep-dive here: [\[Case Study\] 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/)

How To Find A Tech Company That's Less Likely To Do Layoffs

In a bull market like the one from 2014 - 2021, everyone's a genius. While you could work more or less anywhere before and get a couple solid years of career growth, that's not the case anymore. This video covers how you can choose a company that's less likely to do a mass layoff.

Here are the core points:
- **Prioritize profitable companies** - If the company is publicly traded, this is shared in every earnings reports and is easily Googled (i.e. "Is company X profitable?"). A good business needs more money coming in than going out, and companies with fundamentals like these will always be rewarded.
- **Make sure the company is hiring carefully** - The easiest way for a tech company to take on too many costs is by hiring people it doesn't need. If the interview process is too easy or the company is trying to 10x its headcount every year, that's generally a bad sign.
- **Leverage your network** - We all have people who are much smarter than we are within our network, and this is very prevalent in the tech industry. If the best and brightest in your network (i.e. those who really do their homework before accepting an offer) are going to specific companies, there's a good chance those companies have real legs.

Related resources:
- ["Insensitive to talk about applying to a company which has suffered from layoffs?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/LH6CCgWMUAVEAHKDDUWc/insensitive-to-talk-about-applying-to-a-company-which-has-suffered-from-layoffs/)
- ["Staying motivated among lay-offs?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/EEMkoCSNPzdRToTHjuSb/staying-motivated-among-lay-offs/)

Write A Stellar Resume As A Software Engineer [Part 1] - How This Course Works

It doesn't matter if you have mastered 500 LeetCode problems if your resume isn't even good enough to get you the interview to begin with. Writing a stellar resume is one of the absolute highest-leverage things you can do as an engineer yet so many mess it up, making basic mistakes. With this course, you will stop making those mistakes. Here are the core parts of the lesson:

- Your instructor [Alex Chiou](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-chiou/) walks you through his extensive 10+ year Silicon Valley background with rapid career advancement, ending up as a high-performing tech lead making $750k at Robinhood. More importantly, he goes through how he reviewed (and rejected) 1,000+ resumes as he was extensively involved in the hiring loop of all of his prior companies.
- You'll understand why writing a stellar resume is actually quite easy, but the internet makes it hard due to misinformation
- We walk you through the course objectives. By the end of the course, you will understand:
  - 💡 Truly understand the **principles** behind a stellar resume
  - 🗑️ Avoid the common **traps** that make resumes suck
  - 💯 Get **maximum credit** by best framing your experience
  - 📊 Make the right resume based on your **level**
  - 🤔 Know what to do if your resume **isn’t enough**

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 1] - How This Course Works

Are the projects on your resume not helping you at all when it comes to impressing hiring managers and getting job opportunities? Let's fix that. Here are the core parts of the lesson:

- Your instructor [Alex Chiou](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-chiou/) walks you through his extensive 10+ year Silicon Valley background with rapid career advancement, ending up as a high-performing tech lead making $750k at Robinhood. Most importantly, he goes through how he's built 30+ side project apps with 3 of them getting 500k+ users, getting him interviews at top companies like OpenAI, Google, Uber, Instacart, and more
- The exact definition of what a side project is and how it shouldn't be a startup
- You'll understand the many benefits of side projects and why they're almost always underrated by engineers. Side projects can do a whole lot more than getting you interviews and helping you pass them
- We walk you through the course objectives. By the end of the course, you will understand:
  - 💎 Understand what makes a side project **valuable**

  - 🫸 Avoid **common traps** that produce terrible ideas

  - ⚙️ Have a **process** to generate *feasible*, quality ideas

  - 💡 Follow a **framework** to judge a project’s quality

  - 💪 Set up the **right mentality** to build projects long-term

If you want to learn more about Alex's rocket ship career trajectory, take our overall job searching course here: [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/)

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 2] - Don't Jump Headfirst into the Problem

In system design interviews, it's vital to stay focused on the core problem. This video highlights the importance of correctly identifying and addressing the right technical issues:

- Avoid getting sidetracked by irrelevant problems, as shown in the car mechanic analogy
- Successful candidates focus on solving the key issues the interviewer cares about
- Asking clarifying questions helps align with the interviewer's expectations
- We give a demonstration of how a candidate can go wrong by focusing on less important aspects
- We go through an example of a successful candidate who navigates the prompt by staying focused and asking the right questions

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>

What Makes A Truly Great Tech Lead - A VP of Engineering's Perspective

In this lesson, former Mixpanel VP of Engineering David Pan (also ex-Twitter, ex-Amazon, ex-Microsoft) shares his wisdom on what it really means to be a tech *lead*, shipping projects effectively and leaving the team in a better place in the process.

- **Overview:** Tech leads are extremely valuable. They allow a team to multi-thread and execute on multiple projects at once, not requiring the engineering manager to babysit everything.
- **Understands the business context:** Great tech leads have strong product understanding and realize that software needs to be built in different ways based on the situation.
- **Project risk shrinks over time:** Great tech leads are constantly looking for ways to de-risk their projects over time. As things get closer to the ship date, the project actually becomes less scary!
- **Level up the team along the way:** Great tech leads figure out ways to leave the team in a better place than it was before the project.
- **If you're looking to become a great tech lead**: Get to know your PM, assess risk proactively and tackle the hardest items first, and find opportunities to level up your teammates.

You can connect with David here: [David Pan's LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/davepan/)

If you want to learn more about becoming a great tech lead, check out the following resources:

- [\[Course\] Tech Lead Blueprint: Role, Skills, and Strategies](https://www.jointaro.com/course/tech-lead-blueprint-role-skills-and-strategies/)
- [Becoming A Tech Lead Again In Just 1 Month After Joining Robinhood From Meta - Case Study From Alex](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/X8vpfJooDpsX915ouC00/case-study-becoming-a-tech-lead-again-in-just-1-month-after-joining-robinhood-from-meta/)
- ["How do I lead without authority?" - Staff Software Engineer \[E6\] at Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/question/BWv3hFSELbn59mXJbkNB/how-do-i-lead-without-authority/)
- ["How can I hit the ground running as a tech lead?" - Senior Software Engineer \[SDE 3\] at Amazon](https://www.jointaro.com/question/MiEPhSkzr8TRRSMRkrNQ/how-can-i-hit-the-ground-running-as-a-tech-lead/)

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 1] - How This Course Works

Like most engineers, do you have a slate of personal projects on your resume but recruiters and hiring managers simply don't seem to care? Well, that's almost certainly because [your projects don't have any users](https://www.jointaro.com/course/build-side-projects-with-500k-users-coming-up-with-an-idea/what-makes-a-project-valuable/).

This course is here to fix that issue for you. Here are the core parts of the lesson:

- Your instructor [Alex Chiou](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-chiou/) walks you through his extensive 10+ year Silicon Valley background with rapid career advancement, ending up as a high-performing tech lead making $750k at Robinhood. Most importantly, he goes through how he's built 30+ side project apps with 3 of them getting 500k+ users, getting him interviews at top companies like OpenAI, Google, Uber, Instacart, and more

- We walk you through the course objectives. By the end of the course, you will:

  - 1️⃣ Understand what makes a great first version

  - 😯 Learn easy, low-effort ways to improve a product

  - 🗣️ Set up the right mindset for processing user feedback

  - 💻 Know how to build a smooth user interface

  - 📈 Get tactics to acquire users organically

You can find the first side project course here: [Build Side Projects With 500k+ Users: Coming Up With An Idea](https://www.jointaro.com/course/build-side-projects-with-500k-users-coming-up-with-an-idea/)

Performance Review Ratings Example: Meta & Google

- Meta:
  - Meets Some Expectations (MS)
  - Meets Most Expectations (MM)
  - Meets All Expectations (MA): Need this or above to be doing okay.
  - Exceeds Expectations (EE)
  - Greatly Exceeds Expectations (GE)
  - Redefines Expectations (RE)
- Google (these are the old PERF ratings):
  - Needs Improvement (NI)
  - Consistently Meets Expectations (CME): Need this or above to be doing okay.
  - Exceeds Expectations (EE)
  - Strongly Exceeds Expectations (SEE)
  - Superb
- Other companies will use a 1 to 5 system which roughly maps to the above, Google in particular

If you fall below MA at Meta or CME at Google, you will either immediately be put on a [performance improvement plan (PIP) or be at huge risk for one](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/7SsdpweHE4sbyTtz2kxQ/the-key-to-avoiding-the-performance-improvement-plan-how-to-figure-out-where-youre-trending/). Learn how to [avoid or manage a PIP from our course](https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-ultimate-performance-improvement-plan-pip-guide/).

Related resources:

- ["What's the difference between a low performer software engineer and a high performer?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/nMxx2EMVIlJbl1oK4SGu/whats-the-difference-between-a-low-performer-software-engineer-and-a-high-performer/)
- ["How do I help my manager (who is also my mentor) be a better manager and mentor?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/LbHgSEtXcb5QR5nVu8xt/how-do-i-help-my-manager-who-is-also-my-mentor-be-a-better-manager-and-mentor/)

[Masterclass] How To Write Better Code Faster As A Software Engineer

Code: It's the main thing software engineers care about. However, as we all know, writing code quickly while keeping it clean can be extremely difficult. This is what this masterclass will help you with: We want to empower you to not only write more code, but write higher-quality code as well.

There were a ton of important points from this masterclass, so here's our Top 5 (in no particular order):
- **Go deep, not wide** - One of the most common mistakes junior software engineers make is not focusing on just 1 stack, often captured by being a "full-stack engineer". When you go ultra-deep on just 1 stack, you will start developing software engineering fundamentals and "muscle memory" that allows you to write code a lot faster. It will generally take 2-4 years of focus on just 1 stack to start getting really good at it. For more information about this point, check out this video: [This Is How Software Engineers Should Initially Learn](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/wUl3hc2wr1ms493bd23b/this-is-how-software-engineers-should-initially-learn/)
- **Build side projects** - There's no magic to getting better at coding: The more you do it, the stronger your skill. This is why side projects are so powerful: They allow you to write more code without overworking yourself as we talk about in this discussion: ["How will side projects enhance my skills as a software engineer on the job?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KORArGLRW6mNn47ddC1S/how-will-side-projects-enhance-my-skills-as-a-software-engineer-on-the-job/)
- **Submit polished pull requests** - There's more to code than the raw lines you put into commits; how you submit it for review is a huge factor as well. If you take the time to make atomic PRs, add context, and attach a thorough test plan, your code will be landed much faster (and your team will love you for it). For concrete examples on what this looks like, watch this: [One Diff, One Thesis - What Every Code Review Should Be Like](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/3NAbmgiaY3IpvayNIoVl/one-diff-one-thesis-what-every-code-review-should-be-like/)
- **Really absorb code review feedback** - The main way you will learn as a junior engineer or as an onboarding team member is by getting feedback on your code. Make sure to respond to code review feedback in a timely manner (<4 hours) and really soak it in: Strive to never make the same code quality mistake twice. If you're having trouble getting your code reviewed fast, follow the advice here: [Quick Tips To Get Higher Quality Code Reviews Faster](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/QgDk2yWlfWzgLjh56bSq/quick-tips-to-get-higher-quality-code-reviews-faster/)
- **Modularize your code** - Split your code up into focused components with single responsibilities and thoughtful names. When you do this, your code will be much more flexible, reusable, and easier to read. Here's our advice on how to break down large projects into more digestible chunks: ["How can I be better at executing on my work when it comes to coding and breaking down ambiguity?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/6lfyIKgkoclcDNKWq9o3/how-can-i-be-better-at-executing-on-my-work-when-it-comes-to-coding-and-breaking-down-ambiguity/)

Related resources:
- [[Masterclass] How To Manage Your Time Optimally In Tech And Achieve More Results](https://link.jointaro.com/8D6Y6BnYm8696RtC9)
- [[Masterclass] How To Do Amazing Code Review](https://link.jointaro.com/8D6Y6BnYm8696RtC9)
- ["What can I do to quickly build my reputation as a junior engineer?"](https://link.jointaro.com/hxCTvumsQhUqRAbn6)
- [Presentation slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17o6XlEjiYbkV1FMrhOoFwcM1O59NmdAOfZ3AXol7daY/edit?usp=sharing)

Effectively Learning Data Structures And Algorithms (DSA) For Software Engineer Interviews

Which of these is the core building block of data structures and algorithms problems?

True or false: The most effective way to be prepared for data structures and algorithms interview problems is to memorize the code of each problem's solution line by line.

Why should you comment your solutions to data structures and algorithms problems?

True or false: When you are completely stuck, you should just look at the entire solution in order to learn it.

Why is it healthy to struggle on data structures and algorithms problems?

**Data Structure and Algorithm (DSA)** questions are a core part of the interview for most software engineering roles. These questions, sometimes called "Leetcode problems", are essential to master if you want a reasonable pass rate in your interviews. 

However, so many engineering candidates struggle to truly understand these questions, resulting in lower confidence and worse performance. Here are the best tips when it comes to passing these types of interviews:

- The key to mastering DSA is to learn patterns and not memorize code. The "drill and kill" style of studying is really badly suited for DSA.
- 80% of asked DSA problems will use 1 of ~15 different patterns. So rather than focusing on individual problems, your goal should be to connect the problem to a broader, recurring pattern.
- Examples of patterns: binary search, graph traversal, sliding window, tail recursion. Being able to understand problems of the same type is essential. Being able to *name the pattern* is even better. 
- Extensively comment your solutions, primarily with the key pattern behind the problem. When you get started, it will be painstakingly slow to understand each line of code, and potentially comment it. That's ok! You will feel frustrated, but your goal is to deeply understand the problem and solution, instead of simply solving as many problems as you can.
- When you can't figure out a problem, read 10-20% of the solution and see if you can come up with the entire solution from there. Build the muscle of converting high-level points into fleshed out solutions

Related resources:
- ["Mock Interviews vs. Leetcode?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/U4kohSE8g5LR7GD9cqYH/mock-interviews-vs-leetcode/)
- [[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/)
- [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/)

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 1] - How This Course Works

Meta E4 -&gt; E5. Google L4 -&gt; L5. Amazon SDE 2 -&gt; SDE 3 (the final boss). These are some of the most notorious senior promotions in the tech industry and for good reason: They're hard! The Senior Software Engineer promotion is the first promotion 95%+ of engineers seriously struggle with. So why is that? Well, in this course, we'll break that down in-depth and teach you how to navigate the Senior level up with far less struggle. Here are the core parts of the lesson:

- Your instructor [Alex Chiou](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-chiou/) walks you through his extensive 10+ year Silicon Valley background with rapid career advancement, ending up as a high-performing tech lead making $750k at Robinhood. More importantly, he goes through how he was able to grow his mentees to lightning fast promotions, particularly at Meta where he grew 5+ mid-level engineers (E4) to senior engineers (E5) in just 1 year!
- You'll understand what it means to be a mid-level engineer vs. a senior engineer in the market, including the interview space.
- We walk you through the course objectives. By the end of the course, you will understand:
  - 💡 Truly understand the **difference** between a mid-level engineer and a senior engineer

  - 🧠 Have the right **mindset** to behave as a senior engineer

  - 🛠️ Identify your **technical gaps** to senior engineer

  - 📃 Figure out your **fundamental gaps** to senior engineer

  - ✅ Define a clear **roadmap** to senior engineer

If you want to learn how Alex found a multi-million dollar bug as part of his E4 -&gt; E5 senior promotion packet, check out his case study here: [\[Case Study\] Solving A Multi-Million $$ Instagram Bug](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/WYk4J05iBqOuPtD0CYKX/case-study-solving-a-multi-million-dollardollar-instagram-bug/)

What's the Difference Between A Senior And Staff Engineer?

The mark of someone who is NOT ready to be a staff engineer: Asking what needs to happen to get to staff.

A staff engineer should identify problems worth solving, and then get buy-in across the org to solve the problem.

- Despite each staff engineer's journey being different, there's still an opportunity to learn from the examples of other promotion cases. Here's an example from Rachel's days at Yelp with a talented staff engineer:
  - Google announced an algorithm change for SEO ranking, which would favor websites with better mobile friendliness.
  - An engineer on a feature team recognized that this would hurt Yelp and brought it up very proactively.
  - They drove a proposal and broke down the problem with several domain experts in the organization.
  - It took a while, but they were able to ship a quality, long-term solution.
- Instead of just looking at "what" new problem to solve, there's also opportunity for very senior engineers to breakdown the "how" to accomplish a large, ambiguous problem and get to staff.

If you enjoyed this video, you can watch all of Rachel's other Taro videos here: <https://www.jointaro.com/topic/rachel-zhao/>

For more resources on getting to staff:

- ["How can I come up with big initiatives, especially those at a Staff level?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/c3LcBDXEcxA85y9jlFjz/how-can-i-come-up-with-big-initiatives-especially-those-at-a-staff-level/)
- ["For a Staff engineer at a Big Tech company, what should their first 3-6 months look like?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/X8QYtxzD7SXdzMfcnBiX/for-a-staff-engineer-at-a-big-tech-company-what-should-their-first-3-6-months-look-like/)
- ["How do I come up with innovative, impactful ideas and bring them to my team?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3QIJhAT4loA7n1hSfCuw/how-do-i-come-up-with-innovative-impactful-ideas-and-bring-them-to-my-team/)

Become An Open Source Master [Part 25] - Taking The Next Step In Open Source

We've come to the end of our journey exploring open source contributions.

- This course focused on contributing to existing repositories, not creating your own. Creating a successful open-source project involves technical and marketing challenges. James is doing this right now with TinyBase: <https://github.com/tinyplex/tinybase>
- **Open source takes time and patience**. It takes time to learn a codebase, earn trust, and become a strong contributor.
- Don't get discouraged by rejections or setbacks. Every piece of feedback helps you grow.
- The social side of open source is critical. It's about teamwork, building relationships, and demonstrating your ability to work well with others.

Connect with James:

- GitHub: <https://github.com/jamesgpearce>
- Twitter (X): <https://twitter.com/jamespearce>
- LinkedIn: [**https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespearce/**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespearce/)

How Neetcode Got Promoted From L3 to L4 (Mid-Level) Engineer At Google - Tips + Insights

Neetcode struggled with unemployment as a fresh college graduate in 2020. To prepare for interviews, he started the (now massive) [Neetcode YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/neetcode) and landed a job a year later at [Google](https://www.jointaro.com/topic/google/) as an entry-level (L3) software engineer. 

As his first full-time job, Neetcode was unsure if he'd succeed within Big Tech, but he was able to get promoted to mid-level engineer (L4) quickly.

Neetcode attributes his success within Google to 3 elements: 
- **Working independently**: Don't be afraid to try things on your own. You should take advantage of the smart people around you, but you need an attitude of self-sufficiency. That means you should be willing to dive into the code, try out experiments, and read documentation as needed.
- **Soft skills**: Break down the work you're doing to discuss the parts that people care about and be proactive with giving status updates. If you feel like a project may get delayed, be very honest about that with your manager -- communicate what happened and what you're doing to fix it. 
- **Some luck**: Neetcode had a great manager and his starter project turned out to have a larger scope than initially planned. This set him up for the L4 promotion.

Neetcode's (self-assessed) coding skills were average, but he performed better than most L3s due to his ability to work independently and superior soft skills.

**If you'd like a discount on Neetcode Pro, checkout the [Taro Perks](https://www.jointaro.com/perks/) page.**

Related resources: 
- [Learn how Google does performance review](https://www.promotions.fyi/company/google/performance-review)
- [How to work more independently? from an Amazon engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/question/vyIAC3hCmRpiWzzL6SjP/how-to-work-more-independently/)
- [Why You Should Start Your Career At A Big Tech Company](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/OcWRqQcx31VwIEV6tfWK/why-you-should-start-your-career-at-a-big-tech-company/)

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 3] - Interviewing: Why It Sucks

A lot of software engineers don't really know what happens on the other side (i.e. the interviewer giving you the questions), especially for top companies like FAANG. This lesson teaches you:

- Why interview processes are much messier than job candidates expect
- Why tech interviews are inherently unpredictable and random
- How incredibly hard it is to create a quality interview process that both only lets in good talent while not being too torturous for the candidates
- Why it's near impossible for this dark reality of terrible interviewers and interview processes to ever change

If you want to dive even deeper into the interviewer's perspective, check this out: [\[Masterclass\] How To Be An Amazing Interviewer In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/OYKgGZ7syfymlvIJKzuf/masterclass-how-to-be-an-amazing-interviewer-in-tech/)

This Is How Software Engineers Should Initially Learn

- Learn depth-wise initially, and then you can go breadth-wise after you become a very established senior engineer.
- If you don't know what you're passionate about, try a bunch of things out (go for breadth) until you find that passion.
- After finding your passion, go deep on it.
- You need to commit a long period of time to just 1 thing initially, so you start learning fundamentals as opposed to tech stack-specific tactical pieces.
- *You will eventually realize that all tech stacks are the same in many ways* - All languages and tech stacks share a common set of fundamentals. You will not get to this state if you switch stacks every year.

Related resources:
- [How The Best Software Engineers Learn A Tech Stack - The Lego Model](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/9cVK5zsAQstbTCc1wrWx/how-the-best-software-engineers-learn-a-tech-stack-the-lego-model/)
- ["How do you get more independent?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/FUP3gHb7rv9CXc84LaKn/how-do-you-get-more-independent/)
- ["How can I write great code faster?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/ciE9a2TZ7rZNyYP8HbeJ/how-can-i-write-great-code-faster/)

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.