Common Scenarios For Setting Up 1 on 1s

What is the main condition to look out for that could prompt you to set up new 1 on 1 meetings?

Which of the following scenarios is something you probably should set up some new 1 on 1 meetings for?

1 on 1s are meetings for the 2 people involved to connect and build a longer-term relationship. Here are 3 common scenarios where it makes a ton of sense to set up a 1 on 1:

1. **Incoming new hires**: Help the new person on the team feel welcome and get them onboarded
2. **You being the new hire**: When you're new, 1:1s help you build up valuable context and relationships from talking to existing teammates. Use your "new"-ness to setup meetings with anyone who might be relevant to your job [as described here](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xwldhYelyOFLjogs7RVA/onboarding-gives-you-special-powers-make-sure-to-use-them/)
3. **Working with a new team**: If you have a long-term relationship with a partner from another team, it could be worthwhile to setup a recurring one on one with them

Taking Amazing Meeting Notes

For any meeting, what should you make sure for it?

True or false: As long as you write down most of what was said in a meeting, you have taken a good set of meeting notes.

What can you do when someone else in a meeting says something really insightful?

Your meeting is winding down, and you have a good set of notes of what was said during the meeting. What should you do next?

Meetings can easily become unproductive unless there is a clear sense of ownership and structure. This segment emphasizes taking initiative and being proactive with note-taking and follow-up.

- **Take initiative to capture takeaways**: Especially when meeting with a manager, take responsibility for writing down notes and summarizing key points. Don’t assume they’ll do it—they likely have too much on their plate.
- **Communicate your intent**: Let the other person know that you’re taking notes because their input is valuable. This builds mutual respect and sets the tone for accountability.
- **Clarify ownership of action items**: Don’t leave to-dos ambiguous. Specify who will do what—whether it’s you, your manager, or another teammate.
- **Create space for note-taking**: Pause briefly during the conversation when something important is said. Say things like “Let me write that down” to signal that you’re capturing key information.
- **Follow up consistently**: Revisit the notes in future meetings and check progress. This keeps everyone aligned and ensures that good ideas don’t get lost.
- **Adapt for walking meetings**: For more casual one-on-ones (like walking meetings), carve out 10 minutes afterward to document and share what was discussed. This keeps the informal meeting just as productive as a formal one.

Becoming A Legendary Meta Coder: The Story of the First E7 Code Machine

There are many complex ways [**to get to staff and beyond**](https://www.jointaro.com/course/grow-from-senior-to-staff-engineer-l5-to-l6/why-have-archetypes/), but one of them is actually quite straightforward (at least at Meta): *Just write more code than everyone else by a **staggering** amount.*

That's exactly what [**Michael Novati**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelnovati/) did to get to Staff \[E6\] at Meta and eventually Senior Staff \[E7\]. Since Michael was early Facebook, there actually wasn't a Staff Engineer archetype at the time to capture the way he was adding immense value to the company. So they added it! Thanks to Michael, there is now a formal "Code Machine" archetype in the official Meta internal wiki.

Michael will be breaking down:

- His story about how he became Meta's first incredibly senior "Code Machine" engineer
- The most impactful projects he worked on
- How he managed his time effectively to write so many diffs.

At the end, we'll have time for Q&A where you can ask Michael questions about topics like:

- How he grew so quickly and crafted such an extraordinary career
- What the early days at Meta were like
- Different ways to create a unique brand for yourself, your work, and your career

If you need extra help breaking into top tech companies like FAANG, [**Formation.dev**](http://Formation.dev) is here to provide you hands-on, personalized support. Join Michael and the rest of the awesome team at Formation here: [**https://formation.dev/partners/taro**](https://formation.dev/partners/taro)

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 8] - Do Work When You're Working

When engineers say they’ve been “working all day,” that time often includes distractions, shallow tasks, or unnecessary overhead. To truly be productive, you have to focus on high-leverage, distraction-free work. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Real productivity comes from deep work—uninterrupted, focused effort on cognitively demanding tasks—not from staying busy or checking email 50+ times a day
- Recognize and minimize "startup costs" like syncing code, building the app, and reviewing changes, so you can spend more time in the value-generating loop of building and debugging
- Block off long stretches of time for deep work rather than relying on scattered 30–45 minute sessions that get consumed by overhead
- Automate or script repetitive setup tasks (e.g. syncing and builds) to reduce friction and start meaningful work faster each day
- Prioritize difficult, ambiguous tasks early—they often influence downstream work, and avoiding them leads to fake progress and missed deadlines

Become A Debugging Master [Part 19] - Go Deeper: Follow Through

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

See Rahul's upcoming Group Office Hours: <https://www.jointaro.com/p/rahul-pandey/>

Related courses:

- [Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)
- [Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)

Become A Debugging Master [Part 4] - Where To Find Bugs

Finding and fixing bugs proactively is one of the most underrated ways to accelerate your growth as an engineer. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Great engineers don’t wait for bugs to be assigned—they actively hunt for them through QA reports, user feedback, crash logs, dashboards, and on-call alerts
- Proactively surfacing and solving bugs builds trust, reduces last-minute surprises, and makes you a more reliable and promotable team member
- Attending SEV (severe incident) reviews, learning from outages, and applying those lessons is a major career hack for fast growth
- Engineers can approach bugs at different levels of ownership, from simply reporting them to fully owning the investigation, fix, and communication
- Creating scope by finding and fixing high-priority bugs—even without being asked—can dramatically accelerate your career trajectory and reputation

Engineer Your Ideal Tech Career [Part 12] - Mitali Gala: Choosing The Engineering Manager Route

Next, [Mitali Gala](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitali-gala) (a Mentor at Formation) discusses her decision to charge forward as an Engineering Manager and what that entails for her day-to-day work.

She reflects on some of the challenges, some of the highlights, why she is passionate about this work, and who it would be a good fit for.

Looking for mentorship from tech’s top engineers like Mitali + personalized job hunt assistance and interview prep? [Formation.dev](http://Formation.dev) can provide you unlimited career coaching, technical mentorship, personalized practice, and mock interviews. Join us here: <https://formation.dev/partners/taro>

Worksheet: [Formation - Coding Your Career](https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/tech-career-growth.appspot.com/o/courses%2Fslides%2FFormation%20Career%20Direction%20Worksheet.pdf?alt=media&token=f6344b78-529a-411e-a449-7a34a8d55fc8)

15 SWE Years In 1.5 Hours [Part 4] - Debugging

No matter how careful you are as a software engineer, your code will always have bugs. On top of that, you will also need to spend time fixing bugs in code written by other people. This lesson teaches you:

- Why debugging is always a valuable skill (while feature development often isn't)
- How debugging forces you to develop a deeper understanding of the system
- The framework and process you need to understand in order to fix any bug

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 5] - Tech Stack Rankings

Machine learning, web, back-end, DevOps, mobile - There are so many different tech stacks software engineers can specialize in. So how does the type of engineer you are affect your side project potential? This lesson teaches you:

- The rankings for tech stacks when it comes to side projects, starting from which one is the best suited and which ones are the worst suited
- Why mobile engineers in particular are extremely well-positioned to build impressive side projects
- The unfair advantage front-end engineers have when it comes to building side projects and getting credit
- Ideas for non-front-end engineers to build great side projects
- The pros and cons of every tech stack when it comes to side projects

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 3] - The Key To A Great Project Idea

Most engineer resume projects are half-baked school projects or wrappers around basic tutorials, lacking the necessary continuity to be impressive and get users. This lesson teaches you:

- The #1 cause of death with engineer side projects
- The key that every good side project idea needs to even have a chance of being successful
- What it means for a side project idea to satisfy that key, explained with a concrete example showing the inspiration behind Alex's Random Name Picker app, which has over 1.1 million users

DSA Crash Course [Part 35] - Zipper Lists Walkthrough

In this lesson, Alvin walks through the python implementation for the *zipper_lists* problem.

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/zipper-lists?language=py>

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/>

DSA Crash Course [Part 17] - Intersection Walkthrough

In this lesson, Alvin walks through the python implementation for the *intersection* problem.

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/intersection?language=py>

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/>

DSA Crash Course [Part 5] - Is Prime Walkthrough

In this lesson, Alvin walks through the python implementation for the *is_prime* problem.

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/is-prime?language=py>

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/>

Growth And Promotion 6/6: Summary

The 'magic loop' recipe for career success emphasizes doing your job well, asking how you can help, setting goals, prioritizing important tasks, delegating less crucial work, and repeating this process.

- We cover how managers can share this approach with their team, giving specific feedback focused on the work rather than the person, and investing in team members' growth.
- For employees, we discuss being patient when offering to help managers, following the magic loop process, prioritizing work that matters, and considering career coaching. Consider coaching for personalized guidance and an outside perspective.

References:

- 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)

Next steps:

- Share + get support: [**joinTaro.com/questions/create/**](http://joinTaro.com/questions/create/)
- Find community: [**joinTaro.com/events/**](http://joinTaro.com/events/)
- Send feedback to [**team@jointaro.com**](mailto:team@jointaro.com)

Master The DSA Interview [Part 12] - Stuck? Here's What To Do

A defining trait of a strong software engineer is their ability to conquer hardship, and one of these hardships is getting stuck on a data structures and algorithms interview problem. This lesson teaches you:

- Why you need to communicate when you're stuck
- A proactive foundation you should set up to minimize your chances of getting stuck
- What actions you can take when you're stuck outside of coding up the optimal solution (which you obviously don't have as otherwise why would you be stuck?)

Master The DSA Interview [Part 10] - Run-Time Analysis

After clarifying the problem and coming up with a detailed, granular plan, coding up the solution should have been trivial. Now it's time for big O. This lesson teaches you:

- How to actually learn run-time analysis instead of memorizing the big O of every individual problem
- The structure of a strong run-time analysis for a data structures and algorithms problem
- Exactly what a quality run-time analysis looks like, explained with an in-depth example

Become An Open Source Master [Part 3] - What Is Open Source?

We'll start with an introduction to open source, which encompasses not just software but also data, education, standards, hardware, and access.

- Open-source software is released under a license that allows users to use, study, change, and distribute it for any purpose.
- There are various open source licenses with different levels of permissiveness, but for this course, we'll focus on projects under the MIT license.
- Open-source code empowers users to study and adapt software to their needs, similar to how user scripts or custom style sheets modify websites.
- You can learn from open-source projects like React to understand how companies build complex systems.
- If you make changes, you can fork the project or submit your changes back to the original project through a pull request.

Connect with James: 

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

Become An Open Source Master [Part 2] - How This Course Works

We'll explore the benefits of open source and how to contribute to existing projects in this course.

- Understand the benefits of open source and the mindset needed to work effectively in the open source ecosystem
- Learn how to get involved in someone else's project, understand their codebase, and make meaningful contributions
- Explore how contributing to open source can benefit your career by showcasing your skills and building your professional profile.
- This course won't cover how to create your own open source project or what it's like to work on one from within a company.

Connect with James: 

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

Grow From Junior To Mid-Level Engineer [Part 11] - Ask Great Questions

In order to grow fast as an engineer, you need to ask a lot of questions. This lesson teaches you:

- The differences between junior and mid-level engineers when it comes to asking question, particularly question quality
- What a junior engineer question looks like vs. a mid-level engineer question
- How to demonstrate technical mastery in your questions to make yourself look even better when asking for help

Master the art of question asking with our course: [Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)

Top System Design Interview Mistakes [Part 7] - Document As You Go

In system design interviews, it's essential to use multiple forms of communication—verbal, written, and visual. A common mistake is relying only on verbal communication, which can lead to confusion and missed opportunities to iterate on your design.

- Not writing anything down makes it difficult to follow your logic, especially when discussing complex systems. Without written or visual references, both you and the interviewer may struggle to keep track of the design.
- Documenting as you go—whether through diagrams, lists, or notes—makes it easier to iterate on and debug your design. It also frees up your mental resources to focus on solving new problems instead of remembering all the details.
- Finally, well-documented designs provide a useful reference for interviewers when they review your performance after the interview.

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>

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.