[Part 5] Meta Intern Success Series - Writing The Code

- Keep your diffs focused and atomic. Aim for 25-250 lines of code per diff.
- Use stacked diffs: They are core to Meta's code culture. If you're unsure how to break up your work into a diff stack, work with your intern manager to come up with how things should be broken down.
- Make sure that all your diffs have a really good context section. You can have a "Context" section at the top explaining the overall goal of the diff stack (i.e. usually what your intern project is meant to do) and then a "In This Diff" section which explains the specific problem your diff tackles.
- Attach a test plan to show that your code works and to turn the diff review into a high-value artifact. Record a video of you stepping through the flow if possible (this should be easy as many interns work on internal tools) and make sure to cover those edge cases!
- Keep a very close eye on your Phabricator notifications. Your goal is to respond to code review comments quickly (within 30 minutes) and gracefully. **Code review feedback is the main way you grow as a software engineer intern** as the internship's goal is to develop your raw coding ability.
- Land diffs ASAP, so you don't need to deal with rebase hell.

Related resources:
- [One Diff, One Thesis - What Every Code Review Should Be Like](https://link.jointaro.com/Wnp45zAysqyaidSF7)
- [The Most Common Mistake Made When Authoring Code Reviews](https://link.jointaro.com/bCaB7gh2u5budm2V6)
- [What A Test Plan Is And Why Every Code Review Needs One](https://link.jointaro.com/62fq4369rxjXuDju5)
- [This Is What A Good Code Review Test Plan Looks Like](https://link.jointaro.com/ieDhChExstEpD8sw9)
- [Full In-Depth 1 Hour Masterclass On Effective Code Review](https://link.jointaro.com/Vn7YSzTL61i9shwM8)

This Is What A Good Code Review Test Plan Looks Like

In this segment, we highlight a real-world example of an **exceptional test plan** that showcases how thoughtful demos not only validate functionality but also build confidence and trust before a single line of code is reviewed.

### Key Takeaways:

- **We use test plans to demonstrate functionality and edge cases**: In this example from the Random Name Picker app, the test plan includes both the core feature (removing images from names) and handling an edge case (screen rotation), showing completeness and attention to detail.
- **We treat test plans as trust tokens**: A strong demo assures reviewers that the author has thoroughly tested their changes, reducing fear or hesitation around approving the diff.
- **We provide a positive starting point for reviewers**: Watching the video demo first puts reviewers in the right mindset—making them feel confident that the code works as intended, even before reading the diff.
- **We recommend test plans for all product-facing diffs**: Especially when there’s a visual or user-facing component, attaching a video or GIF dramatically improves understanding and quality of collaboration.
- **We invest a few minutes to add a lot of value**: Creating a short demo takes just 5–10 minutes, but it adds context, transparency, and professionalism that elevate the entire code review experience.

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 27] - Hiring Manager Round (Separate)

Congratulations, you went through the onsite loop and did well! But what's this - The engineering director behind the job you're interviewing for wants to talk? This lesson teaches you:

- When separate hiring manager rounds happen (and why that's a good thing)
- How to pass hiring manager rounds and what to expect from them

Understanding The Differences Between Engineering Levels

True or false: Very senior engineers are at their levels because they act and operate in a fundamentally different way from their more junior peers.

How can you properly tell the more senior engineers from the others?

Which one of these is a core example of what a very senior (i.e. Staff or above) engineer would do?

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

Who Gets Cut In A Mass Tech Company Layoff?

After a layoff, some will be cut and the rest will survive. This begs the question: Who gets cut? There is a lot of misinformation about how these decisions are made, so this video goes over how this extremely painful process actually works.

Here are the core points:
- **Layoffs vary heavily based on company** - There is no standard when it comes to layoffs, and different companies value different things. *There is no such silver bullet that will protect you 100% from layoffs.*
- Potential layoff factors (remember, there are exceptions to all of these):
  - **Performance** - High-performers will be preserved over low-performers
  - **Org priority** - Higher revenue orgs will be preserved over loss makers
  - **Seniority** - Senior engineers will be preserved over more junior engineers
  - **Tenure** - Engineers with deep domain expertise will be preserved over newbies who are still learning the ropes
- **For most people, layoffs are effectively random** - At the end of the day, layoffs are almost always made by executives with very incomplete information. You can be a consistent high-performing software engineer who is a 10-year company veteran and still get cut. Do your best and keep your expectations realistic.

Related resources:
- ["How to survive potential layoffs?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/ydZFpJz0x8wKUIfd8E1r/how-to-survive-potential-layoffs/)
- ["Are layoffs random or can I do something to prevent getting laid off?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/TIX9Mox7KAPJg6ZUujpg/are-layoffs-random-or-can-i-do-something-to-prevent-getting-laid-off/)

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 8] - Avoid Level Overload

Not all teams are created equal when it comes to promotion opportunity, far from it in fact. Don't sleep on this crucial angle when it comes to planning out your promotion plan as a software engineer. This lesson teaches you:

- The 2 types of level overload to avoid and which one is worse
- How to a team that has a healthy mix of levels vs. one that doesn't
- Why level overload is bad, particularly when there's a lot of engineers at the same level you are

Write A Stellar Resume As A Software Engineer [Part 10] - Fancy Formats

Creativity is great, and it's a very important skill for software engineers. However, the resume is not a medium for creativity to thrive. This lesson teaches you:

- Why "creative", fancy resume formats are really bad for a tech resume, shown through a very eccentric example
- The principles to follow for a great resume format
- What a resume with an optimal format looks like with a real-life example

If you need inspiration for your resume format, you can use Alex's template as a template. Download it here: [Alexander Chiou Resume.docx](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NnAx2jYkRTMCQwbdDPPqSj1Fwxkahda-/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109380646850979301783&rtpof=true&sd=true)

Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer [Part 16] - Project Management

Planning a project is just the first step: Execution is when things really matter. The problem is that every software engineer leading a project should expect the unexpected, especially at a top tech company. This lesson teaches you:

- How senior engineers set themselves apart when leading projects
- The core ingredients for successfully managing a project, both during and after execution

Related resources:

- ["What are some thoughts on maintaining good meeting hygiene?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CModSkZ4LWzw9bdaiakt/what-are-some-thoughts-on-maintaining-good-meeting-hygiene/)
- ["How to get more visibility on work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/XA0X51AypDLCeVeleJv4/how-to-get-more-visibility-on-work/)

Master The Behavioral Interview [Part 15] - Mid-Level Engineer

Mid-Level engineers are engineers who have a good amount of experience but aren't exactly senior yet. Most software engineers fall into this bucket. This lesson teaches you:

- The expectations from a mid-level engineer overall and how that reflects in behavioral interviews
- The kinds of stories mid-level engineers tell in behavioral interviews

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 23] - Sell Yourself, Claim Your Wins

So many software engineers don't realize that perception and reality are 2 very different things that often drift apart. The painful truth is that perception is far more important than reality. This lesson teaches you:

- How software engineers can do amazing work but their teammates actually think they're mediocre
- Why you need to put in the work to get full credit for your work, especially for promotion
- Why you shouldn't only wait for huge launches to communicate progress
- Which mediums to use when it comes to sharing progress updates
- The many benefits of high-quality project updates

For more concrete tactics on writing a top-notch project update, check this out: ["How to get more visibility on work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/XA0X51AypDLCeVeleJv4/how-to-get-more-visibility-on-work/)

[Become A Go-To Person 2/18] What Industry Experts Say

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/)

Setting Up Your Engineering Mindset For Long-Term Success

What separates the top senior engineers from everyone else?

True or false: One of the reasons top tech companies are so strong is because they are so well organized. Every project is neatly defined, so when engineers take them on, they can just execute quickly and easily.

Which one of these is the enemy of productivity?

True or false: A lot of senior engineers write very little code, adding value in other ways.

Why is it important to break problems down?

- A core expectation of engineers at top tech companies like FAANG is that they're able to take large, ambiguous tasks and smoothly execute on them. This is effectively a requirement reaching senior levels at these places.
- The trick to these projects *is to break them down*. Breaking down large projects into smaller and smaller sub-tasks makes the overall body of work clearer and less scary. Clarity is one of the main ingredients that leads to action.
- This decomposition is also vital for your mentality. By defining these smaller and more reasonable milestones, you are setting up your brain to register a win more frequently and consistently. This does wonders for your confidence and self-worth, which allows you to do good work sustainably over a long period of time and eventually ship these large tasks and massive projects.
- The gained clarity also enables you to ask for help more easily and delegate work, the latter being a staple behavior of senior+ engineers at top companies.

Related resources:
- ["How can I get better at estimating long-term projects?"](https://link.jointaro.com/bcc3PgBTWCoaKqDD7)
- ["How do I make software less overwhelming?"](https://link.jointaro.com/j3itbssZN9XUdq998)

Grow From Senior To Staff Engineer [Part 8] - Create Scope

The best engineers don't need to be told what to do. Creating scope is a behavior that usually develops as an engineer hit senior, and it's sharply refined as they grow to staff. This lesson teaches you:

- Why staff engineers often write less code than their senior engineer counterparts
- The difference between senior and staff engineers when it comes to creating scope
- A trap senior engineers often fall into when trying to creating scope
- The more graceful way competent staff engineers create scope within their organizations

Watch Rahul's internal tool case study here: [\[Case Study\] Building A Meta Internal Tool To Empower An Entire Org: Staff Promotion Story](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/qvp2quodqAEWSkN7sayt/case-study-building-a-meta-internal-tool-to-empower-an-entire-org-staff-promotion-story/?playlistId=EWIo3USNcsgXbCs5PS0h)

A Framework For Integrating AI Into Your Workflow

> **AI will not replace you. A person using AI will.**

This [tweet](https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1610984481342771200) was seen 5M times because it captures a transformation that will happen in the workplace over the next 5 years.

This video covers a practical framework to apply AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, or Github Copilot to become more productive in your job.

The goal for many of us is to become the mythical **10x engineer** – they have 10x as much impact as their peers. These engineers do exist, but they don’t write 10x more code or fix 10x more bugs. Instead, they understand the concept of leverage, which manifests in two ways.

- Take a challenging problem, and solve it in a 10x or 100x better way
- Make 10 or 100 people around you more productive

Shreyas Doshi has a [framework called LNO](https://www.aakashg.com/2022/02/01/lno-framework-for-product-managers/) to identify where you should spend your effort:

- *Leverage (L)* tasks are tasks that have huge consequences and you should do a great job.
- *Neutral (N)* tasks are tasks that are important, but don't have a big payoff. You should do a good job.
- *Overhead (O)* tasks are tasks that are a tax on your time. You should just get it done.

Let's go through an example in each bucket:

In the **leverage** bucket is creating the design or architecture for the project. This is high leverage not only because architecture is inherently difficult to change, but it’s also an important trust-building exercise.

- Ask AI to identify what could go wrong with your general approach and then add that as a discussion.
- Ask AI to summarize documents related to what you’re trying to build
- Ask AI to solve the problem and then sanity-check. The results here won’t always be good, but at least you should be able to explain why you’re choosing one path over the other.

Some coding tasks are in the **neutral** bucket. AI gives us the opportunity to dramatically speed up how long some coding tasks take.

- Use tools like Copilot to write boilerplate code much faster
- Instead of having to go to StackOverflow, you can get answers inline
- Ask for things like regexes or how to do something in idiomatic Kotlin

Finally, there are tasks in the **overhead** category that AI can help minimize

- The classic example is writing your performance review – you’re not actually having any business impact.
- I recommend every engineer has a [brag document](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/QVqPkuCvplbHSqBWtKJX/make-your-promotion-case-easy-keep-a-brag-journal/) of what they did throughout the half or year. Then you need to massage all your work into whatever template your company uses.

With the rise of AI, asking good questions is more important than ever. Artificial Intelligence cannot read your mind (at least not yet 😅), so the quality of your question dictates the quality of your response. Learn more about asking good questions with our course: [\[Course\] Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)

How To Work With Your Manager To Get The Performance Review Rating You Want

Too many engineers are afraid of awkward conversations, so their plan is to just do good work and hope for the best. This rarely works.

Here are the points from the video:
- **Getting the rating you want is a team sport** - You need to be in-sync with others (particularly with your manager) on your desired outcome. You have to be transparent about what you want. Use your 1 on 1 to have those hard conversations with your manager on the delta between where you are now and where you want to be. It's painful to hear that you're falling behind, but it's much better to hear it 3 months before the performance review instead of 3 days before.
- **Don't assume that you're doing well** - Just because you're not receiving negative feedback doesn't mean that you're doing okay; the reality is that you could be doing as bad as trending towards PIP. Remember that managers are busy, and they can easily forget to give you critical feedback in a timely manner (or just not fully realize you're not doing well until they see peer feedback).

Related resources:
- [[Taro Top 10] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -> M Track)](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [[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/)

Code Review MUST Be Fast, Otherwise The Team Is Unhealthy

In this final segment of the video, the speakers reflect on the crucial role that **code review turnaround time** plays in engineering culture, team productivity, and developer happiness. Timely reviews are not just a technical necessity—they reflect the team’s values and operational discipline.

- **We treat code review turnaround time seriously.** Our standard should be to review diffs within *one day*, two at most. Slow feedback cycles—especially taking 4–5 days—compound and slow down overall delivery velocity.
- **We recognize code review as a gatekeeper with real power.** Since all production code must pass through this step, bottlenecks here can deeply affect morale, productivity, and team trust.
- **We advocate for clear team expectations.** When reviews consistently lag, we push for a shared SLA (Service Level Agreement) around review times, ensuring accountability and smoother planning.
- **We balance urgency with respect.** While prompt reviews are key, we also avoid pestering reviewers within minutes of submitting. Giving at least 6 hours (unless it’s urgent) is a sign of maturity and respect.
- **We proactively build good habits.** Many of us block time at the end of our day to batch and respond to review requests, which helps us maintain velocity without excessive context-switching.

Rahul's Compensation Journey To $800K (and behind-the-scenes)

In 2021, the last full year Rahul worked at Meta, he made $823K. When he joined Facebook (Meta) in 2017, his total compensation was $390K. See the full details [in the YouTube video](https://youtu.be/inydj1VZ0y0).

In this session, Rahul documents how his yearly compensation more than doubled over the 4.5 years he was employed at the company. This talk will cover details that didn't fit into the YouTube video while exploring angles of it more in-depth.

Topics:

- What components of compensation matter the most in a typical tech company
- Parts of a company's compensation philosophy which have large consquences, but are not often understood or discussed
- How to think about level and negotiation when job hopping
- The psychology around pay changes, and how people change their spending when hitting certain compensation milestones

Related content:

- [How To Earn Respect Fast - Senior Engineer Onboarding Story](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/FaD8tVGXP6SiRQfee4SD/how-to-earn-respect-fast-senior-engineer-onboarding-story/)
- ["How can I think like a staff engineer?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/RU3Mof8NeEYQP30l6giW/how-can-i-think-like-a-staff-engineer/)
- [This Is Why FAANG Engineers Make So Much Money - Tech Compensation Breakdown](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/1aKjiSKcHDttnyTAYXy4/this-is-why-faang-engineers-make-so-much-money-tech-compensation-breakdown/)
- [\[Masterclass\] Understanding And Optimizing Your Pay In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/gk408yBIV2fa5RjVR213/masterclass-understanding-and-optimizing-your-pay-in-tech/)

Grow From Junior To Mid-Level Engineer [Part 7] - Code Review

As a mid-level engineer, it's not enough to write good code yourself - You need to help others write good code as well. This lesson teaches you:

- How junior and mid-level engineers differ when it comes to code review quantity, shown with concrete Meta numbers
- The difference between a junior engineer code review comment vs. a mid-level engineer code review comment, explained with an in-depth example

Get better at code review with our masterclass: [\[Masterclass\] How To Do Amazing Code Review](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/rhRFh49oouaUDhWUvkQb/masterclass-how-to-do-amazing-code-review/)

Onboarding Tips Within Smaller Companies

Some relevant tips if you're onboarding as an engineer in a smaller company:

- Smaller companies will have less process and, therefore, a less formal onboarding. This means it's more important to get stuff done quickly since you can't rely on a bunch of classes or hand-holding.
  - A good benchmark is to land code within a week
- In a smaller company, a lot of knowledge will be in the heads of a few people
  - Your goal is to find the tenured people and ensure you understand their worldview and prioritization.
- Don’t assume processes or people exist. Especially if you come from a larger company, you should not assume that there is a well-defined QA (Quality Assurance) team or design team.

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.