20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 1] - Rahul's History With Procrastination

Welcome to our "20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination In 1 Hour" course! Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Your instructor Rahul Pandey goes through his personal experience struggling to get stuff done (and learning how to fix that)
- Focus on building systems that make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing, rather than relying on willpower
- The advice is tailored for people with autonomy over their time, not for those in reactive or manager-style roles

Manager vs. Maker schedule: <https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html>

Write A Stellar Resume As A Software Engineer [Part 3] - The Key To Writing A Great Resume

In the vast majority of cases, a recruiter is reviewing the resumes of software engineers. This means a lot more than most engineers realize. This lesson teaches you:

- The #1 principle you **need** to remember when writing your resume
- The important attributes of recruiters when it comes to vetting resumes
- How to truly empathize with recruiters and infer their resume screening behaviors based on that
- How recruiters read through engineering resumes

The #1 Thing You Need To Know About Promotion In Tech

True or false: To get to very senior engineering levels, you need to write thousands of lines of code per day.

Why is output not as important for promotion?

- *Promotion is about behavior, not output*
- Raw output doesn't scale. You only have so many hours in a day, and your hands can only physically type so many lines of code per minute.
- Senior engineers can have 10x to 100x the impact of a junior engineer. In order for them to do this, they need to add deeper types of value to the business.
- That deeper type of value comes from behaving in a fundamentally different way to more junior levels. In particular, engineers at these very senior levels add multiplicative value instead of additive value. An example of this is a senior engineer empowering many others to write code instead of just writing the code themselves.

Related resources:
- [[Taro Top 10] Time Management And Productivity](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/5WA87nbbYJWLnQ60D826/)
- [[Masterclass] How To Get Promoted Faster In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/W730BOdrfAIXAEVd8HUf/masterclass-how-to-get-promoted-faster-in-tech/?playlistId=eZOEUatYEe7BBAZByuha) - The full video where this clip is from
- ["How to improve at multi tasking at work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/ION8KZHyA8fNWOpHDhZI/how-to-improve-at-multi-tasking-at-work/)

Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer [Part 4] - Stay The Course

It's incredibly easy to get distracted with random incoming tasks, especially at a fast-paced company like FAANG. This lesson teaches you:

- The importance of staying the course and sticking to your high-impact, ruthlessly prioritized tasks
- How to diplomatically push back and say "No" (saying "Yes" to everything is one of the easiest ways to destroy your productivity as a software engineer)

Why Onboarding Matters

This video discusses the importance of onboarding and how it can significantly impact your reputation and career growth. 

If you imagine a "**Trust Meter**" where 0 means you have no trust and 100 means absolute trust, your default score as the new engineer will be around 50. Existing employees will think you are smart and have good intentions, but you need to work hard to increase the score and unlock larger-scoped projects. This hard work begins in onboarding.

The other reason the initial months in the company are important is because the tech industry is changing increasingly rapidly. When the average tenure at a company is &lt; 2 years, you need to figure out how to fully ramp up in a fraction of that time. Even within the same company, you will likely switch teams multiple times. Re-orgs are so common!

By approaching onboarding with a proactive plan and a sense of urgency, you can set yourself up for success and build strong relationships quickly.

Effective Communication Guide [Part 2] - Basic Tactics

Most software engineers are socially awkward, and they perceive communication as this mythical skill that is impossible for them to master. Well, it turns out that there's quite a lot of very easy things you can do to become much better at communication. This lesson teaches you:

- **Use tentative language** - You can always be wrong, and you should acknowledge that in how you communicate:
  - Bad: "Your code isn't performant."
  - Good: "I think this code may have performance issues."
- **Body language matters** - Communication isn't only the words you say or write, it's also how you express with your face and body. This is something that is biologically wired into humans: Put your entire self into it when you are communicating, especially when you're listening! This is covered more in the part of this course: [Effective Communication Guide \[Part 3.2\] - Deep Listening](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/q1UyjOoZ2pud9IdmXlVJ/effective-communication-guide-part-32-deep-listening/)
- **No leading "hello" for digital communication** - When asking for help digitally, don't do a greeting and then wait for a response greeting before jumping into your ask: Just attach your ask from the get-go. Software is all about efficiency and waiting for this round trip makes things less efficient. For more advice around asking for help effectively, here's our in-depth video about it: [Asking Effective Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/HV8sq75WxM9VhK0dhUun/asking-effective-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)
- **Lead with the core point** - Think of a "tldr" when it comes to long articles. This also applies to how you talk: Start with the main idea, and then go into the details. When you start by going into the weeds (very common for earlier-in-career engineers), it's very easy for people to be uninterested or get lost in what you're saying. For an example of how this applies to technical writing, check out this Q&A from a Meta engineer about it: ["How to get more visibility on work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/XA0X51AypDLCeVeleJv4/how-to-get-more-visibility-on-work/)

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 3] - The Key To Understanding Promotion

We're told our entire lives that the key to success is to work hard. While this is admittedly true for most professions, it's very much not the case when it comes to software where you need to work *smart* in order to get anything done, especially for promotion. This lesson teaches you:

- The key insight behind understanding what promotion truly means, especially at top companies
- Why you can't get promoted by just working longer hours and writing more code, especially at very senior levels
- A framework to understand what separates incredibly senior (L6+) engineers from the more junior ones
- What it means to think multiplicatively instead of individually, including an in-depth example

Excited about developing better product intuition after watching this lesson? Check this out: ["How to develop product sense as an engineer?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/w84sxyM805YOCokfvuQ8/how-to-develop-product-sense-as-an-engineer/)

Promotion Is Underrated And The True Foundation Of Your Pay And Career

Here are the core points from the video:

- In a lot of companies, promotion isn't meaningful, both in terms of growth and pay increase. *However, promotion is extremely powerful when you're working at a top-tier company like FAANG.*
- In a good environment, promotion is the most organic option to increase your total compensation as it means that your actual skill and increased pay are actually correlated with one another.
  - If you get promoted at a FAANG/Big Tech company, this sets the foundation for future opportunities as you will now be put at this level at least 95%+ of the time. For example, if you become a senior engineer \[L5\] at Google, it is very unlikely that your next company will put you below senior.
  - It's also crucial to remember that at FAANG/Big Tech, the expectations are quite real and quite high. By getting promoted to your level, this means that you are actually able to perform at this level, as opposed to the scenario where you negotiated an up-level via a job switch where you might be dangerously over-leveling yourself.
- *The problem with doing the interview prep and job switching grind is that you're not actually growing as a software engineer during that time.* There is a huge disconnect between interview skill and actual skill, especially with data structures & algorithms (DSA).

Additional promotion resources:

- [Nail Your Promotion: Senior To Staff (L5 -&gt; L6)](https://www.jointaro.com/learning-paths/nail-your-promotion-senior-to-staff-l5-to-l6/)
- [Nail Your Promotion: Mid-Level To Senior (L4 -&gt; L5)](https://www.jointaro.com/learning-paths/nail-your-promotion-mid-level-to-senior-l4-to-l5/)
- [Nail Your Promotion: Junior To Mid-Level (L3 -&gt; L4)](https://www.jointaro.com/learning-paths/nail-your-promotion-junior-to-mid-level-l3-to-l4/)

How to Crack System Design Interviews - Part 1: Introduction to the course

This course will help you understand system design interviews, prepare for them, and learn what to keep in mind during the process. Here's what we'll cover:

- **Understanding the Interview:** We'll review the structure of a system design interview and how it evaluates your skills, focusing on preparation, communication, and problem-solving.
- **Importance of Communication:** We'll discuss how to effectively communicate your ideas, understand requirements, and collaborate with the interviewer.
- **Technical and Problem-Solving Skills:** We'll explore how to leverage your experience and knowledge to answer questions effectively, drawing on real-world examples and theoretical understanding.
- **Preparation Strategies:** We'll cover various methods for preparing for system design interviews, including mock interviews, independent learning, and structured courses.
- **Step-by-Step Guidance:** We'll break down the interview process into manageable steps, offering clear and concise instructions to help you succeed.

Do mock interviews from one of the services on the [perks page](https://www.jointaro.com/perks/) (e.g. [Exponent](https://www.tryexponent.com/?ref=taro)) or [Taro's networking tool](https://www.jointaro.com/networking/?selectedServices=Mock+Interviews).

[Gaurav Sen](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gkcs/) has conducted 1000s of system design interviews while working at Uber and building his [YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@gkcs) to 500K+ subscribers. His platform [InterviewReady](https://interviewready.io/?_aff=JOINTARO) combines video explainers, live Zoom classes, and an automated System Design Judge.

System Design Series: Taro Playlists [Part 2] - Sharing The Context

Core points from the video:

- Weak organizations will have product and engineering be incredibly siloed. It is far more effective when product managers and engineers work very closely together. Meta in particular has seen a lot of success by having this harmonious culture.
  - This means that software engineers should also understand why they are building something and not purely be responsible for implementation.
  - Software engineers should have an opinion on the product and work with their PMs to optimize vision and direction.
- A master spec should also have the context behind the "why" of a product and not only contain technical details.
  - The product details will often live in a separate document called a PRD (Product Requirements Document). In this scenario, you should link it in your technical spec and maybe have a paragraph summary of its contents as well.
- Capture any existing context that will affect how you build your system. This will often means that there's components that are already around in your company's ecosystem that you need to build on top of - This scenario is extremely common when building projects in Big Tech.
- Attach visual aides if you can (images, videos, gifs): It makes it far easier for project stakeholders to grok the information.
- **Context behind Taro playlists:**
  - One of the most requested feature within Taro
  - Think of it as being similar to YouTube playlists
  - We have already shipped a read-only version of playlists

For the full system design doc, you can get it by [becoming a Taro Premium member](https://www.jointaro.com/membership).

DSA Crash Course [Part 4] - Is Prime Approach

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

> Write a function, *is_prime*, that takes in a number as an argument. The function should return a boolean indicating whether or not the given number is prime.
>
> A prime number is a number that is only divisible by two distinct numbers: 1 and itself.
>
> For example, 7 is a prime because it is only divisible by 1 and 7. For example, 6 is not a prime because it is divisible by 1, 2, 3, and 6.
>
> You can assume that the input number is a positive integer.

```
is_prime(2) # -> True
```

```
is_prime(3) # -> True
```

```
is_prime(4) # -> False
```

```
is_prime(5) # -> True
```

```
is_prime(6) # -> False
```

```
is_prime(7) # -> True
```

```
is_prime(8) # -> False
```

```
is_prime(2017) # -> True
```

```
is_prime(2048) # -> False
```

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/>

[Case Study] Becoming A Tech Lead Again In Just 1 Month After Joining Robinhood From Meta

- The expectations for an L5+ (senior+ at a FAANG or similar company) engineer are high. You won't get 12 months or even 6 months to fully onboard: You need to start having huge impact and showing your depth within 1-2 months.
- After starting, Alex told his managers that he was happy to offload any responsibilities they had so they could focus on higher-level issues and expand their scope. As a tech lead, you need to view your manager as a partner, not just a boss. "Treat me as a resource."
- The project that Alex was first put on was to make settings more server-driven within Robinhood
- The most impactful thing to do was to add color to the project:
  - Stabilize and then drive the workstream meetings
  - Create a thorough tech spec
  - Align XFN to figure out how to treat each settings section properly, especially in places where there were inconsistencies
- How Alex added his depth:
  - Wrote a 5+ page Android spec for his portion
  - Manually audited all of settings and compiled a detailed spreadsheet of inconsistencies to fully capture impact
  - Thorough data analysis spec, doing complicated SQL queries himself
  - Mentored an L4 engineer in the process, giving them L5 scope
- Recap (how you can incorporate the learnings here into your work):
  - Earn trust quickly: Be "aggressively" nice. Find out how you can add value to others and be very sincere and upfront about it.
  - Fill in the gaps: View your projects holistically and figure out what's missing to move the project forward. This will often times be "less flashy" non-coding work.
  - Bring people together: Don't be paralyzed by your lack of knowledge. Especially if you're new to a company, you will be clueless in a lot of scenarios. If you're in a cutting edge company like Meta/Robinhood, there will be a smart person(s) somewhere out there with the answer: You just need to bring them together in a healthy way.
  - Go deep: There's far more to a senior engineer than their ability to code. If you're a new L5+ engineer, even the tenured L3/L4s at the company will code circles around you in the beginning. If you're an L5+ engineer, figure out what behaviors and fundamentals you have that more junior engineers don't and show those as much as you can. This generally involves shipping software in a much more holistic way.

Related resources:
- [Presentation slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j5Lj_IGrtCRUpobj0f8k9egrBAej9apzikGp_V_iTCk/edit?usp=sharing)

This Is How You Become A Layoff-Proof Software Engineer

Some software engineers are better equipped against layoffs than others. They are less likely to get laid off, and if they do get laid off, they bounce back faster than everyone else. This video covers how those engineers do that.

Here are the core points:

- **Focus on building up fundamental skills** - Divorce yourself from specific technologies and product spaces. Always be thinking: *"Can I take my abilities to a completely different team/company and succeed?*"
- **Soft skills are very underrated** - Communication, leadership, and project management are skills that are useful anywhere. They are also skills that are almost always required to reach senior engineering levels, especially at Big Tech companies like FAANG.
- **Learn how to do real system design** - This is how you ascend to the higher level, away from the direct code, allowing you to add more value to engineering organizations. To learn how to do real system design (not the trivia you need to know for interviews), watch our course here: [\[Course\] System Design Masterclass: Shipping Real Features To Production](https://www.jointaro.com/course/frontend-system-design-masterclass-building-playlists/)

Related resources:

- ["What are software engineering fundamentals?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3VNPK7wol76s89EkgFeW/what-are-software-engineering-fundamentals/)
- ["How to develop soft skills like leadership, stakeholder management, etc.?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Ivo1RsizAMGoGKXmqg6N/how-to-develop-soft-skills-like-leadership-stakeholder-management-etc/)

[Masterclass] How To Succeed At A New Team Or Company As A Software Engineer

There are **ton** of great points in this presentation, so to prevent this summary from being a 10 page essay, we're only including our Top 5 points:
1. **Asking for help != weakness** - In fact, it's quite the opposite: Trying to figure out everything on your own and not asking questions is what makes you weak. Being comfortable with your cluelessness and putting yourself out there aggressively to get all the help you need is what makes you strong. Learn more about this dynamic here: ["How do I balance being more independent and asking questions?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/cLsgiARaD5kVmV1BvdUi/how-do-i-balance-being-more-independent-and-asking-questions/)
2. **Get maximum value from questions** - Ask high-quality questions and ask follow-up questions to really understand the answers your teammates give you and the systems they followed to arrive at those answers. Your goal is to learn skills in a sustainable way that makes you more independent as opposed to needing hand-holding all the time. To better understand hand-holding (and how to evolve from it), check out our in-depth explainer here: ["What does it mean to not require handholding anymore?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/5vEWajcZlSi7nlohTGtJ/what-does-it-mean-to-not-require-handholding-anymore/)
3. **Don't get trapped reading the code and documentation** - The only real way to learn a codebase is to just hop in, start changing code and seeing what happens. Software is all about learning via doing. Watch this video to learn more: [How To Learn A New Codebase Fast](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/DX27hiXPJ4G7Czk2mwLL/how-to-learn-a-new-codebase-fast/)
4. **Thanking people is a skill** - When you're onboarding especially, it is crucial for you to show your gratitude effectively: Don't just do the basic, boring "Thanks for the help!" DM over Slack/Teams after you have been helped. Send the helper a heartfelt note, tell them in person, or let their manager know about their great deed. You can learn more about "deep thanks" here: [Effective Communication Guide [Part 3.1] - The Power Of Thanks](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/noWZaoGWlrYQxX2Vhigd/effective-communication-guide-part-31-the-power-of-thanks/).
5. **Be empowered to help others, even when you're new** - Anyone can help others, even the newbie. In fact, newbies are equipped to add unique value by having a fresh pair of eyes, particularly around improving the onboarding process for others. If you're onboarding, make it one of your priorities to earn respect as that will make the entire onboarding process smoother for you.

For more premier resources on onboarding:
- [[Case Study] Becoming A Tech Lead Again In Just 1 Month After Joining Robinhood From Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/X8vpfJooDpsX915ouC00/case-study-becoming-a-tech-lead-again-in-just-1-month-after-joining-robinhood-from-meta/)
- ["How do you overcome the fear of asking stupid questions / bothering people when you need help?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/vNE8kgpx2zdI1wACg9jA/how-do-you-overcome-the-fear-of-asking-stupid-questions-bothering-people-when-you-need-help/)
- ["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/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MTs7GIklpVnYrA_JRlgcpKu1reeTLto1kYEsa6M8UqI/edit?usp=sharing)

Why Becoming A Good Engineering Manager Is So Hard

Becoming an engineering manager (EM) is a major career shift that’s both difficult to achieve and hard to excel at. This video outlines why the role is rare, what background is typically required, and how drastically different it is from being a software engineer.

- **EMs are in short supply**: The pool of strong engineering managers is even smaller than that of strong engineers, making it hard for companies to hire great EMs.
- **Strong engineering background is essential**: Most capable EMs started out as senior or staff-level engineers, often operating as tech leads before transitioning into management.
- **High entry barriers**: Given the requirement for both technical excellence and people skills, very few engineers are qualified to move into the EM role.
- **Only 20% skill transfer**: On average, just a fifth of the skills from a software engineering background apply directly to engineering management—making the job feel brand new.
- **Steep learning curve**: Many new EMs are surprised at how little their past experience as engineers prepares them for the demands of management, which requires a vastly different skill set.

Related resources:

- [\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)
- [\[Case Study\] 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/)

Asking Effective Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly

What are some things you can do to improve your question?

True or false: Ideally, your question takes less time to answer than it took for you to ask the question.

What is the core operating principle behind asking and answering questions?

True or false: In order to be polite, you should preface your question with a simple greeting like "Hello". After the potential answerer responds, then you can ask your question.

Why do you need to attach a lot of context and be as specific as possible asking questions in tech?

- **Core principle**: Questions are an exchange of time. You put some time to write your question and the answerers take some time to respond. Your goal is to make the amount of time necessary to answer your question smaller than the amount of time you spent asking it.
- Have empathy for the people answering the question. Thank them pre-emptively!
- Avoid leading "hi". Just ask them your question directly!
- Google your question and go through the initial results prior to asking your question. Inline that context in your question.
- Attach as much relevant context as possible. You want to prevent back-and-forth where answerers need to ask you questions to clarify your initial question.

Related resources:
- [Bad Question vs. Good Question Example](https://link.jointaro.com/fiY293kj2ewPwMqB8)
- ["How do you overcome the fear of asking stupid questions / bothering people when you need help?"](https://link.jointaro.com/37FJnTAX1BN2e5wt6)

Engineer Your Ideal Tech Career [Part 11] - Michael Novati: Becoming A High-Level IC

Next, [Michael Novati](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelnovati) chats about his impressive career advancement and passion for high-level IC work. Michael progressed from a new grad engineer to Staff engineer at Facebook within 3 years, and then Senior Staff after.

He reflects on the key steps he took to progress quickly, common misconceptions people have about being a high-level IC, and the types of people who may love this work longer-term.

Looking for mentorship from tech’s top engineers + 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)

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)

2 Ways To 100x Your Productivity That Nobody Does

What are the 2 underutilized but straightforward ways of becoming far more productive?

True or false: Often times you should sacrifice sleep and exercise in order to get more hours, thereby becoming more productive.

Why is it absolutely necessary to get in good sleep and regular exercise no matter what?

- The 2 core pillars of productivity are a consistent, good night's sleep and regular exercise (3-5 times a week).
- "I don't have time for that" is not a real excuse. There are thing you *make* time for. Nobody says they stopped brushing their teeth to become more productive: That is an example of something everyone makes time for. Sleep and exercise are the same way.
- The math doesn't check out for sacrificing these. It doesn't matter if you have more hours in a day from doing this if your rate of getting things done is very low. And it will be low if you are constantly sleep deprived and not physically fit.

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 2] - What Makes A Project Valuable

Most engineers optimize for the wrong thing when they build personal software projects, which is 99% of engineer portfolio projects don't matter at all. This lesson teaches you:

- The only metric that matters when it comes to the quality and impressiveness of your side project
- Why getting actual users supercharges the learning and growth you get from building a side project, far more than choosing the best "modern" tech stack ever could
- Common traps engineers fall into that make their side project meaningless, especially when it comes to recruiting

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.