[Part 4] Meta Intern Success Series - Working With Your Intern Manager

- Meet with your intern manager (IM) at least every week for 30+ minutes. Anything less is a recipe for failure as your software engineer internship is so short.
- Treat your IM as a resource, not a boss. They are there to help you. Don't be afraid to leverage them aggressively to unblock you.
- The incentives align between you and your IM. They get rewarded substantially if you get the return offer, and it's rough for them if you don't. It's in everyone's best interests for you to get more from your IM.
- **Do not hide issues**. If you have any sort of problem, whether it's a technical one or a mental/emotional one, share it with your IM. Learn to be vulnerable.
- Ask for feedback every 2-3 weeks, don't just wait for mid-cycle. You can ask how you're trending rating-wise to get a clear picture. It is hard to course correct if you come out of mid-cycle with a poor rating.
- Ask for feedback regularly and make it clear to your IM that you treat all feedback as a gift and you act on it fast (literally within a few hours/days).

Related resources:
- [You Should Be Vulnerable With Your Manager](https://link.jointaro.com/CCLPu9Pp6pmRrn427)
- [Having The Proper Mentality For Manager 1:1s](https://link.jointaro.com/wmxxUCrHKvUH1D4b8)
- [Suppress Your Instincts And Treat All Feedback As A Gift](https://link.jointaro.com/TsJKvMLrzvveMkpS9)
- [Full In-Depth 1 Hour Masterclass On Effective 1:1s](https://link.jointaro.com/67uVtoJWBYwrqgDJ7)

Real Stock Options Example - Kosei (Acquired By Pinterest)

This final segment offers a real-world walkthrough of a startup stock option offer and breaks down the critical information employees need to assess the *true* value of such equity. It highlights how confusing option grants can be without proper context and the financial implications of exercising options.

- **Real Offer Letter Example:** The speaker received an offer of 62,000 options at a $0.14 strike price, totaling $8,750 to exercise. However, the true value of this offer depends entirely on factors not included in the letter, like company valuation and total shares outstanding.
- **Vesting and Exercising Mechanics:** Vesting followed the standard schedule—1-year cliff with monthly vesting afterward. Post-termination, many startups only give a 90-day window to exercise, which can be financially burdensome.
- **Liquidity and Risk Considerations:** Employees may lose out if they can't afford to exercise before leaving a startup. As a response, some companies began extending the exercise window up to 10 years, reducing financial pressure on departing employees.
- **Tax Strategy Tip:** Exercising early (if financially feasible) starts the clock on long-term capital gains, which can save 10–12% in taxes versus short-term treatment if exercised and sold after a liquidity event.
- **Most Common Mistake:** Employees often overvalue large share numbers without understanding what fraction of the company those shares represent. To assess an offer, it’s essential to ask:
  - *What percentage of the company do these shares represent?*

  - *What is the current fair market value versus the strike price?*

Without those answers, it's impossible to accurately evaluate the worth of a stock option grant.

Tips On Navigating RSUs

This video highlights the complexity of **RSUs (Restricted Stock Units)** in tech compensation, emphasizing how RSUs introduce elements of personal investing into salary evaluation. Understanding how stock fluctuations affect total pay and managing risk becomes crucial.

- **Evaluating RSUs is similar to investing**, since compensation becomes tied to the company's stock performance. Joining when stock prices are low can lead to significantly higher gains if the stock appreciates.
- **Choosing a company means essentially “buying” into its future**, since RSUs form a large part of total compensation. A rising stock price increases income; a falling one diminishes it.
- **There is no universal rule for managing RSUs**, as financial goals and risk tolerance vary by individual. Compensation strategies should reflect personal financial context.
- **Some employees choose to sell RSUs immediately upon vesting**, aiming to diversify rather than concentrate risk. This reduces financial dependency on a single company’s performance.
- **Investing RSU proceeds into diversified assets like S&P 500 index funds** is a common approach for those seeking more stability and reduced exposure to employer stock.

The Power Of Big Tech: Meta Interns Can Get $100k+ Signing Bonuses

Compensation is not talked about enough, leading to huge differences in awareness and feedback for different groups of people. This is a snippet from the full masterclass session about [Understanding And Optimizing Your Pay In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/gk408yBIV2fa5RjVR213/masterclass-understanding-and-optimizing-your-pay-in-tech/).

Some companies offer massive signing bonuses for interns that convert over to full-time. In the early 2010s, Facebook (not Meta) paid return interns a $75,000 signing bonus. For top interns (or those who negotiated), they received a $125,000 signing bonus.

For a new grad engineer who might be 21 or 22 years old, **this is a huge amount of money**. It can be difficult to turn that down. But the more important consideration is the overall total compensation (TC) calculation. Total compensation should be computed over a 4 year window since companies typically give out equity grants over 4 years.

For Rahul's full compensation breakdown of the 5 offers he received as a new grad, watch this video: [5 Offers w/ FAANG Companies As A New Grad: Details + Lessons](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/4MBOiqWEMbCTCcLPjisz/5-offers-w-faang-companies-as-a-new-grad-details-lessons/)

Become A Debugging Master [Part 17] - Share The Learning

A lot of engineers move on immediately after landing a fix, but the best ones take the time to reflect and prevent similar issues in the future. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Retrospectives help you identify root causes and system weaknesses so you can either prevent a future incident or make it much easier to detect and fix
- A good postmortem analyzes what went well and what didn’t across detection, notification, response, mitigation, and analysis, with detailed documentation to capture all learnings
- Writing a clean, detailed doc with screenshots and explanations makes it much easier for future engineers to learn from the incident without having to dig through chaotic logs or chat threads
- Big tech cultures like Facebook normalize failure and focus on minimizing damage and learning quickly, often using formal SEV reviews to improve systems and processes over time

Become A Debugging Master [Part 15] - Monitor System Health

Fixing a bug isn’t the end — true resolution means confirming the fix worked at scale. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Always monitor system health after a fix using real metrics, not just local device testing, to verify the problem is truly resolved
- Track both user-facing metrics (like revenue, call minutes, login attempts) and code-facing metrics (like error rates, ingress/egress traffic, build failures)
- Be aware of natural variations in user metrics across days, weekends, and holidays so you don’t misinterpret normal fluctuations
- Revisit your original blast radius notes and make sure the impacted areas are reflected in your dashboards to fully validate recovery
- Understand the difference between root causes (e.g., spike in Firestore reads) and lagging indicators (e.g., billing costs) when monitoring your fix

Example metrics dashboard: <https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/>

Become A Debugging Master [Part 14] - Debugging Case Study: Meta

Let's make things concrete with a clear debugging case study from Meta. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Mastering the deployment process (web continuous deploys vs mobile gated releases) and internal tools like “Where Is My Diff” at Meta can make it faster to rule out likely causes
- Being deeply familiar with experiments, gatekeepers, and other release tooling can help you spot issues like sudden error spikes or QA/test build failures without needing to dig into the code immediately
- Effective debuggers can quickly answer questions like when a code change deployed, what experiments launched, and what version a user was on during a bug report
- Going deep into tooling and metrics, not just code, lets you identify root causes faster, communicate precisely with teams, and resolve issues much more efficiently

How Facebook does continuous deployment: <https://engineering.fb.com/2017/08/31/web/rapid-release-at-massive-scale/>

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 20] - Everyday Is Networking Day

Networking doesn't need to be hard. In fact, it should be easy. This lesson teaches you:

- What networking should feel like when you're doing it properly
- Why networking shouldn't feel like a hard, conscious, extra effort
- Ways to make networking seem more natural
- One of the most common mistakes engineers (and introverts in general) make when it comes to networking and maintaining relationships

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 15] - Have Their Back

Disagreement is everywhere in tech, and it's often quite stressful. However, it's also a prime time for you to deepen your network and relationships. This lesson teaches you:

- Why having someone's back in times of disagreement is so powerful
- The main avenue to have someone's back
- How engineers completely waste the meetings they go to
- How having someone's back against yourself is insanely powerful
- Where so many engineers go wrong when it comes to their mentality around being right

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 14] - Easy Ways To Earn Trust

Gaining trust is always harder than losing trust, but that doesn't mean it needs to be slow. This lesson teaches you:

- How you can earn trust simply by doing your work
- A very natural and technical way to earn trust as an engineer specifically
- Powerful ways to earn trust while scaling up your influence
- The immense power of a $5 coffee ☕️

Related resources:

- Learn how to do good work with our 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/)
- The Instagram oncall revamp case study: [\[Case Study\] Revamping Oncall For 20 Instagram Engineers - Senior to Staff Project](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/esVxIGXYC5BdgxXUkO6H/case-study-revamping-oncall-for-20-instagram-engineers-senior-to-staff-project/)

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 8] - In-Person Is King

Remote and flexible work are amazing, but they do come with massive downsides, especially when it comes to networking. This lesson teaches you:

- The fatal flaw with remote work, particularly with accruing social capital
- Why humans aren't intrinsically wired to work remotely (quite the opposite)
- What gets lost in translation during remote work and video calls
- What types of engineer should prioritize in-person work

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 5] - Act With Urgency

Top interns succeed by treating every week as high-leverage and avoiding the common traps that waste time. Here are the core points from this lesson:

- Adopt a mindset of urgency—internships are short, so prioritize work that drives progress on your main project and skip distractions like excessive social events or irrelevant tasks
- Use a structured timeline: ramp up quickly in the first 3 weeks, execute intensely for 6, and aim to wrap and demo your project by week 10
- Aggressively seek help when blocked and bias toward action—don’t wait for replies when a quick conversation can resolve things faster
- Avoid rabbit holes into infrastructure or tooling curiosity; stay focused on work that directly impacts your deliverables and evaluation

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 3] - Do Your Research

Preparing before your internship starts can dramatically boost your success and confidence. Here are the core points from this lesson:

-  Do early research to understand your team, tech stack, workflow, and company culture so you can hit the ground running
- Gather information in two key areas: the day-to-day process (tools, tech, work style) and desired outcomes (like return offer criteria and evaluation timelines)
- Use sources like your future manager, forums, and most importantly, upperclassmen who’ve done similar internships—they’ll offer the most candid, balanced insights
- Ask thoughtful questions to get meaningful answers (e.g., “What do you wish you had known at the start?” instead of “Did you like it?”)
- Even learning small details—like which version control system is used—can give you a valuable head start and make your first week much smoother

Learn how to succeed overall in school as a Computer Science student here: <https://www.jointaro.com/course/15-years-of-software-engineer-knowledge-in-1-hour-30-minutes/succeeding-in-school/>

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 5] - Make It 5x Better With 0 Effort

It can be tempting to make some money on your side projects given how much time you're putting in. However, this is almost never worth it. This lesson teaches you:

- Why the ROI on adding paywalls and ads to your product is pretty bad, especially when considering the true purpose of your side project
- Why payments are way more complex than you think
- The many downsides of adding ads to your product
- A little bonus you can do on top of making your product free and ad-free

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 2] - Done Is Better Than Perfect

Code quality is important, but side projects sort of break the rules here. This lesson teaches you:

- How good engineers often mess up their side projects from the very beginning
- Why making mistakes is perfectly fine (good even) when starting a side project
- How fast you should launch the v1 of your side project

Part 3 [RBP] Clean Up Your Effects

This lesson emphasizes the crucial practice of cleaning up side effects in React components to prevent unexpected behavior and optimize performance.

- **Understanding useEffect Cleanup:** Learn how to use the cleanup function returned by `useEffect` to properly handle resources like network connections, event listeners, and subscriptions.
- **Avoiding Memory Leaks and Unexpected Behavior:** Discover how neglecting cleanup can lead to memory leaks, multiple event triggers, and other unintended consequences, especially when components mount and unmount frequently.
- **Debugging with Strict Mode:** Explore how React's Strict Mode helps identify potential issues by intentionally double-invoking effects in development, making it easier to spot missing cleanup logic.

Links:

- Florian’s Next.js with Express and TypeScript Course: <https://codinginflow.com/nextjs>
- Florian’s free web development playlist on YouTube: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrnPJCHvNZuDG6BWjUFVxeWyYlve_SVJO>
- Code link: <https://github.com/codinginflow/react-best-practices/blob/effect-cleanup/src/app/page.tsx>

Part 1 [RBP] Exploring Modern React Frameworks + Setup

This lesson covers setting up a new React project using best practices. It discusses choosing the right framework, emphasizing the benefits of Next.js for its full-stack capabilities and features like routing and image optimization. The lesson also touches on the importance of TypeScript and ESLint for code quality and maintainability, and introduces the App Router as the modern approach to structuring Next.js applications.

- Florian’s free web development playlist on YouTube: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrnPJCHvNZuDG6BWjUFVxeWyYlve_SVJO>
- Code link: <https://github.com/codinginflow/react-best-practices/branches/stale>

Engineer Your Ideal Tech Career [Part 10] - Sophie Novati: The Founder Journey

This video kicks off a section of 4 videos in which you’ll hear from different accomplished engineers on their career paths and what drew them to that route.

Starting us off, [Sophie](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophienovati/) (course author!) provides more context into how she became a founder, the typical founder path, and why she has a deep admiration for the work she does.

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)

Engineer Your Ideal Tech Career [Part 8] - What Stage Of Company?

In this video, we walk through common traits among different company sizes and also how they differ vastly. We also talk through a key mistake many engineers make when thinking about company size and stage.

Depending on how you like to work, the idea of which company size you want to shoot for should become more clear.

This video covers three main company types:

- Start-up
- Growth stage
- Large company

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)

Engineer Your Ideal Tech Career [Part 7] - What's Your Specialization?

In this video, we walk through three (of many) specializations you can pursue, what type of work you may be working on in each, and who its a good fit for based on the work you like to do.

These are just three of many; each of these buckets are massive and cover a lot (while also having distinct sub-categories in each):

- Frontend/mobile
- Backend
- Generalist

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)

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.