Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 21] - Recruiter Screen

Having a recruiter talk to you is one of the most common ways tech companies start the interview process for software engineers. Here's the thing: These recruiter screen ones can be surprisingly tricky for many software engineers. This lesson teaches you:

- When recruiter screens happen
- How difficult recruiter screens can be, how often software engineers fail them, and why many software engineers are terrible at them (when they really shouldn't be)
- What to expect in a recruiter screen so you can pass it with ease

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 13] - Cold Messages

You're applying to tons of software engineer jobs, and it's not working out. In your desperation, you come up with a genius idea: You'll reach out to company employees directly with a cold message. That'll work right? Guess again. This lesson teaches you:

- Why cold messaging isn't as effective as software engineers think
- How a reliance on cold messages often mask a deeper personal problem for the engineer
- The necessary conditions for a cold message to have a high likelihood of working
- Why cold messages are far more effective with startups and near useless for Big Tech
- How to write an excellent cold message, demonstrated by a thorough example of a bad cold message vs. a good cold message

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 11] - Struggling? Send More Applications

One of the most common reasons for a struggling software engineer job search is that they simply aren't applying enough. The good news is that this can be easily fixed with the proper behavior adjustments. This lesson teaches you:

- How you can conquer the job search with sheer math
- A healthy conversion rate for application -&gt; interview chance
- Why you should almost never spend too much time on any individual application (quantity &gt; quality)
- The framework to follow on whether you should apply a ton or apply more selectively

Here are the Big 2 job searching websites:

- <https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/>
- <https://wellfound.com/>

On top of the Big 2, we've seen engineers have success with:

- <https://otta.com/>
- <https://www.workatastartup.com/> - Jobs at Y Combinator startups specifically, the greatest incubator in the world which is behind Stripe, DoorDash, Airbnb, and many more FAANG-adjacent companies

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 9] - Polish Your Resume

Your resume is the most important professional document in your life. However, a lot of software engineers are severely lacking in this department. This lesson teaches you:

- The perspective of the often underappreciated tech recruiter and why they automatically reject the overwhelming majority of resumes, especially if they work for a top company like Big Tech
- How to write a resume that recruiters won't hate and instantly throw in the trash, leveraging that empathetic mentality from before
- The steep, underestimated cost of basic resume mistakes, which are incredibly common among immigrant engineers where English isn't their first language
- Why you should make just 1 focused resume instead of several, especially if you're earlier-in-career
- How recruiters hyper-efficiently read resumes (spoilers: they often don't read the entire thing)

13 minutes isn't nearly enough to fully understand all the mechanics of a good resume, so you should dive deeper here: [\[Masterclass\] 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/?playlistId=PJqfgn35DG82NSm3QyfT)

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 7] - Stronger Together

The software engineer job search is extremely exhausting. We now know that grit is the most important trait for interview success, but it's hard getting there purely on your own. This lesson teaches you:

- The big difference between knowing something and applying something
- Why finding an accountability partner is crucial for learning and making genuine progress
- A very basic (but powerful) framework you can go through with your accountability partner to push one another to greater and greater heights on a consistent basis

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 24] - Infinite Layers Of Nesting

Nesting is great for birds, but terrible for code. Having too much nesting is one of the easiest ways to make code terrible. This lesson will teach you:

- Why deeply nested code is literally hard to read
- The early-return pattern to unfurl nested code
- How to compress conditionals properly (this includes how not to mess them up)

Amazon Case Study: The Ultimate Guide To Navigating A PIP

Case studies are valuable to (1) realize that you are not alone and (2) learn from the experiences of others and see what you can apply.

We’ll start with a new grad Amazon engineer who joined during the pandemic.

- **Before**: First job out of college, was on Focus after 6 months
- **During**: Shocked when they found out (URA quota suspected). Manager became more “HR-like”, less candid
- **After**: Went through the PIP and failed, even though they showed improvement

How To Approach "Doing Your Own Thing" -- Startup Discussion And Feedback

This session is for *wantrepreneurs* (someone who wants to leave their full-time job and do a company) and early entrepreneurs. In the last two decades, more money and attention have gone to early-stage startups. It's easier and cheaper than ever to start a startup, especially if you're an engineer!

There are 3 paths to scratching the entreprenurial itch: 

1. Build something on the side
2. Lifestyle or indie business
3. VC-backed business (raising millions of dollars in venture capital)

### Build something on the side

This is where you should start -- build something on nights and weekends while maintaining your full-time position. You need to prove to yourself that you have enough skill and autonomy to create something of value **entirely on your own**. No professor, no manager, no tech lead. The 3 most common paths to building something on the side are to (1) publish an app, (2) do freelance/consulting work, or (3) teach your skills. As documented in [this blog post](https://www.jointaro.com/blog/the-best-engineering-side-hustle-teaching/), teaching is the best side hustle if you have in-demand engineering skills.

### Lifestyle or indie business

The goal with an indie business is to make a livable income with a small team selling a high-margin software product. I'd call the number as a project where you can make $100K+ annually. Founders in this bucket are working full-time on their business, but they likely have not taken any outside funding. One way to achieve this is to niche down enough and serve a neglected demographic, "*courses for left-handed pickleball players"* or "*a mobile app for senior citizens in the Bay Area to find activities"*.

### Businesses built with Venture Capital

Very few businesses fit this category, but you may not think that, since these few companies command the lion's share of time, attention, and money. These are companies that have a charter to take over the world, or at least to take over a market. In exchange for money, VCs will take equity in your company, and also likely have some governance power. The minimum benchmark to raise VC is usually a $1B opportunity with $100M in annual revenue, and there will be pressure to grow at 2x or 3x year over year for many years. 

If you'd like to build a VC-backed company, I recommend going through a credible accelerator like [**Y Combinator**](https://www.ycombinator.com/apply) like [**PearX.**](https://pear.vc/pearx-application/) 

A good pitch is used to get a potential investor excited about your company, yourself, and the vision you're presenting. It should contain a simple explanation of how your company creates value (skip the buzzwords), and explain who you serve. You should expect rapid-fire questions and skepticism. A good pitch has the following ingredients: 

- Use clear, simple words
- Get to the point
- Teach something
- Show why **you** are uniquely-equipped to solve this problem

Relevant resources:

- [**\[Taro Top 10\] Entrepreneurship And Tech Startups**](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/ArtlSzF17v7cad1K6TJG/)
- Alex answering [**"How did you decide to quit your job and make a startup?"**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/beZzIkLUP28WinNQctlP/how-did-you-decide-to-quit-your-job-and-make-a-startup-9132022/)
- [**How can H1B (visa) holders do a startup?**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/N0TKzFWve7K7riyGx9rQ/how-can-h1b-visa-holders-do-a-startup/)
- [**How To Prepare To Leave Big Tech For A Startup**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/muNQH8uZSviN8P60RaKS/how-to-prepare-to-leave-big-tech-for-a-startup/)
- [**Taro at YC's Demo Day (Summer 2022)**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/81ACDLKEO9SVX964S1Yx/taro-at-ycs-demo-day-summer-2022/)

The Correct Reason To Become A Manager

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now coaches managers to break into executive levels. 

Ethan believes the "correct" answer for someone's motivation to becoming a manager should be based on a genuine desire to help and grow other people, rather than on external factors like money or power. People who are motivated by these external factors tend to make poor managers.

The management job is very different from the individual contributor (IC) role. You may be used to learning different technology stacks, but management is about learning an orthogonal "stack" altogether, focused on soft skills and people.

Reflect on your own experiences with good and bad managers -- it's important for managers to have a cohesive style that has a clear set of opinions. This style will not be suitable for everyone, but that's ok. Ethan made the analogy of ice cream flavors. There's no correct ice cream, people will have different preferences in the same way that people will prefer different types of managers. 

Ask yourself (and ideally, test drive) the activities you would do as a manager, things like organizing people's work and holding them accountable.

More to explore:

- [**\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)**](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [**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/?playlistId=oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp)
- [Asking For A Promotion: The Wrong Way vs. The Right Way](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/GvT4NBqaBULFlizarSCf/asking-for-a-promotion-the-wrong-way-vs-the-right-way/)

Paper Reading Group: Attention Is All You Need

Generative AI, specifically large language models, have taken the world by storm. But they wouldn't exist today without a key paper published by Google Brain: "[Attention Is All You Need](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762.pdf)." The 10-page paper, published in 2017, introduced the Transformer - a critical innovation in neural networks.

**What's in store?**

- A deep dive and interactive discussion of the paper. We recommend reading (or at least skimming) it first: <https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762.pdf>
- A look at what came before the paper (neural networks, embeddings), and what came after (BERT, GPT-2, and ChatGPT).
- **All software engineers welcome** - no AI/ML background necessary!

**Did you know?**

- The paper's authors have all gone on to found multiple billion-dollar AI companies including Cohere and [Character.ai](http://Character.ai).
- Since 2017, the paper has been cited over 86,000 times.
- The Transformer architecture is the **T** in "GPT".

**Your host:**

[Charlie Guo](https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlierguo/) is a seasoned founder and author with over 15 years of software experience and more than a decade in Silicon Valley. He is an alum of both Stanford and YCombinator, and currently publishes [Artificial Ignorance](https://www.ignorance.ai/about), an AI-focused newsletter for engineers and founders.

**The agenda:**

- Charlie will give a brief background, and then explain the key insights and context from the paper.
- We will open the group to some Q&A and a broader discussion.
- And we'll end with some discussion on which paper to read and review next.

The next paper reading group is on October 15 about [deep reinforcement learning](https://www.jointaro.com/event/paper-reading-group-human-level-control-through-deep-reinforcement-learning-deep-q-network/), led by Sai Bhavanasi.

Meta Case Study - Debugging A Massive Production Issue

Here we go through an example bug at Meta. Given the information, we need to figure out what kind of root cause is behind the issue. This case study shows:
- Why it's important to understand the blast radius of a bug
- How knowing the context behind a bug can help you locate the problem area
- The value of having robust analytics

This video is a clip from our debugging masterclass. You can watch it here: [[Masterclass] How To Become A Debugging Master And Fix Issues Faster](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/ioR6WzamAIUTpySLAr7o/masterclass-how-to-become-a-debugging-master-and-fix-issues-faster/)

Related resources:
- [[Case Study] Solving A Multi-Million $$ Instagram Bug](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/WYk4J05iBqOuPtD0CYKX/case-study-solving-a-multi-million-dollardollar-instagram-bug/)
- ["How can I become more independent and better at unblocking myself with tricky technical issues?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/QhqQQGrDgFjZbqohpKe0/how-can-i-become-more-independent-and-better-at-unblocking-myself-with-tricky-technical-issues/)
- ["What is the effective way to understand new repository in order to make the required changes in that repo?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KoxB3UU2zWC9pdYU6Rx0/what-is-the-effective-way-to-understand-new-repository-in-order-to-make-the-required-changes-in-that-repo/)

How to Negotiate a Big Tech Offer as a Software Engineer - Pragmatic Engineer and Rahul

How does a compensation package look like for a software engineer at tech companies? How do base salary, annual bonus, equity (options, RSUs), sign-on bonuses and perks usually add up? What parts of the package can you negotiate? How can you line up multiple offers at the same time? We talk about these and more in the video. You can -- and should! -- negotiate any offer you receive from a Big Tech company. 

There are 4 primary parts to compensation in Big Tech: 
- Base salary
- Annual bonus
- Sign-on bonus
- Equity

Perks could also be considered part of the compensation package, but these are generally standardized across all employees for a company, so they're not considered for the purposes of negotiation. (Think of things like 401(k) match, free food, game rooms, etc.)

It's important to understand the different parts of compensation because you can start to shift the conversation with companies to be more cooperative rather than zero-sum. For example, some companies have strict bands for their base salary, but are more willing to negotiate on their equity. Knowing this, along with your own utility for different types of comp, can lead to a final decision where both sides are happy.

Throughout any negotiation, it's important to be respectful in your communication, and also consider factors beyond financial compensation, such as team dynamics and the hiring manager's perception. Don't rush into signing a contract without careful consideration -- negotiate terms over email to allow for proper reflection.

More resources on negotiations:
- [The #1 Rule Of Negotiation - How To Avoid Giving A Number](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/4T3wTorG47wPzSqVmAOx/the-1-rule-of-negotiation-how-to-avoid-giving-a-number/)
- [[Case Study] How To Land 18 FAANG+ Offers With Steven Zhang (Airtable, USDR, Tableau)](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/gGkO4pLeFq1ctRM9tSBF/case-study-how-to-land-18-faang-offers-with-steven-zhang-airtable-usdr-tableau/)
- [3 Quick, Powerful Negotiation Tips](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/8VeEnbxdbPKsZbTcCFm5/3-quick-powerful-negotiation-tips/)


This is a video from [Gergely's YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@mrgergelyorosz). 
- Original source: [https://youtu.be/cbngWLr7BC4](https://youtu.be/cbngWLr7BC4)
- Gergely writes the popular [Pragmatic Engineer newsletter](https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/).
- [Follow Gergely on Twitter](https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz)

How Alex Made An App That Got 80k+ Users In 1 Month

### The Story
- In summer 2016, Pokemon GO took over the world. Alex saw a need for an app to figure out where certain Pokemon were, so he and a friend quickly created a Yelp-style crowd-sourced app tying Pokemon to locations (pulled from the Yelp API). Alex worked on the Android app, and the friend owned by back-end.
- The app immediately saw immense traction, going from a few dozen to a few hundred to a few thousand (3,000+) new installs *per day* within just a week. **After less than a month, the app had been used by 80,000+ people.**
- Alex ran into copyright issues publishing the app as it used Pokemon images. Despite the app being free, ad-free, and not even asking for donations, it kept getting rejected. To hack around this, a server-side flag was created to turn off the images as the app was in review and turn them back on when the app got approved.
- Google Play eventually found out about the trick and took down the app for copyright infringement. However, the app was impressive enough at this point that Alex could include it on his resume, and it helped a lot getting interviews and giving him something to talk about during them.

### Learnings
- *Building a marketplace is extremely difficult* - A marketplace product is one that's a platform and requires a certain amount of some valuable resource in order to be useful: It's not useful on its own in a vacuum. For example, Uber needs a supply of readily available drivers to be useful. In this app's case, it needed data on Pokemon locations, which had to be provided by users.
- *Don't expect users to use the product properly* - In fact, don't expect your users to not be jerks. The app suffered a lot initially as users were uploading blatantly fake data of legendary Pokemon showing up in the wild - Legendary Pokemon hadn't even been released yet during the app's lifespan!
- *Be proactive and think through edge cases* - Zooming out from the prior point, it's just good to do this in general no matter what kind of software you're building, whether it's an entire app or a small feature on some already existing product owned by a FAANG company. Understand how things can get weird and address those scenarios accordingly.

If you want to learn how to build your own side projects, check these out:
- [[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/)

If you're interested in the code of the Android app, Alex took the time to save it here: [https://github.com/Gear61/GO-Database](https://github.com/Gear61/GO-Database).

This Is Why FAANG Engineers Make So Much Money - Tech Compensation Breakdown

Learn about the 4 components of compensation:

1. Base salary
2. Sign-on bonus
3. Performance bonus
4. Equity

The latter two are less understood, and they are key to understanding why compensation at tier 1 tech companies is so high.

And we also talk about how Mark Zuckerberg actually had a pretty big impact on increasing tech compensation as a whole!

[The Insider's Guide To Negotiating Your Tech Salary And Compensation](https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-insiders-guide-to-negotiating-your-tech-salary-and-compensation/)

Make Sure To Set This Up With Your Manager To Ace Your Performance Review

- Work with your manager to figure out which peers you should request feedback from at the end of the cycle: They may already have a bunch of peers in mind!
- Once you figure out these key peers, talk with them upfront about your goals, especially if they're ambitious and you're gunning for promotion. Work with them early to build this relationship, especially if they're more senior.

Can A Company Demand High Performance AND Allow Learning?

Your Great Engineering Manager Will Eventually Leave You 🥺

Even when a highly capable and supportive engineering manager is found, the relationship often has a built-in expiration date. This video explains why strong EMs tend to move up quickly and what that means for their reports. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- **Great EMs focus on long-term growth**: A strong manager prioritizes their engineers' success, fostering an environment that supports both team and individual development.
- **Fast career growth is common for top EMs**: Exceptional managers are often promoted quickly, typically within 1–2 years, due to their high impact and leadership abilities.
- **Promotion changes reporting structure**: When promoted to senior engineering manager, EMs typically move from directly managing engineers to managing other managers, altering team dynamics.
- **ICs often lose direct access**: Most engineers will start reporting to a new manager, while their original EM becomes a “skip-level” manager—only senior ICs may continue reporting directly.
- **Disruption of strong relationships**: The transition can be disheartening for ICs who thrived under the original EM, especially when that connection was key to their growth.

What To Do If Your Manager Keeps Canceling Your 1 on 1s

Your manager keeps canceling your 1 on 1s due to a perceived lack of discussion topics, even though you always have a lot to talk about. What do you do?

Your manager cancels your upcoming 1 on 1 meeting due to an unexpected, new fire that they have to deal with. However, you have a lot of important issues to talk about. What do you do?

Proactively managing recurring one-on-ones is crucial, especially given the inherent power and time imbalance between managers and their direct reports.

- **Acknowledge the power dynamic**: Managers are often busier and have more reports, which can lead to frequent cancellations. Recognizing this helps frame a constructive response.
- **Use a shared running doc**: If a meeting is about to be canceled due to “nothing to talk about,” reference specific bullet points in a shared one-on-one document to demonstrate the agenda and keep the meeting on the calendar.
- **Reschedule thoughtfully**: When a cancellation is due to emergencies or time constraints, acknowledge the situation but follow up by proposing specific alternative time slots based on their availability.
- **Reduce their friction**: Make it easy for the manager to say yes by combining two key tactics—propose a concrete reschedule and provide the meeting agenda in advance.
- **Leverage career growth principles**: Just like with asking for support or promotions, simplifying the decision-making for your manager increases the chances of success and strengthens your working relationship.

Become A Debugging Master [Part 2] - Why You Should Love Bugs

Bugs are often seen as a nuisance, but in reality, they offer one of the highest-impact ways to grow and succeed as an engineer. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Junior engineers often avoid bugs to chase “cool” feature work, but experienced engineers recognize bugs as critical for making meaningful product impact
- Owning and fixing bugs can accelerate your career growth, even to senior levels like Staff or Senior Staff Engineer, by demonstrating deep technical skill
- Debugging teaches you to dive across teams, codebases, and systems—skills that are rare, valuable, and highly rewarded
- Fixing bugs ensures real, lasting impact compared to feature work, where many experiments and launches often quietly fail
- Mature engineers view the endless supply of bugs as opportunities to create visible, undeniable value by removing problems that directly affect users

Related resources:

- Code quality course: [Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [Girish Patangay: The billion versions of Facebook you’ve never seen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXGgc79sGwY)

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 21] - Go Deeper: Follow Through

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

Join Alex for Group Office Hours: <https://www.jointaro.com/p/alex-chiou/>

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

Community member made summary of the course: [Side Projects Shipping & Growing - Summary Doc](https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/tech-career-growth.appspot.com/o/courses%2Fgeneral_resources%2F%5BSUMMARY%5D%20Side%20Projects%20-%20Shipping%20%26%20Growing.pdf?alt=media&token=6d336c8b-26d6-45f2-a206-8682e64d21c5)

Related courses:

- [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/)
- [Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-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.