Asking Great Questions [Part 25] - How You Should Evolve

It's important to make sure that you're always getting better - As long as you're improving, you will eventually become a rockstar engineer. So how does that work when it comes to judging your question asking ability? This lesson teaches you:

- What seniority does not mean when it comes to asking questions
- What seniority actually means when it comes to asking questions
- A simple framework you can use to evaluate the level your questions are at, split by junior/mid-level/senior+

Asking Great Questions [Part 20] - Make Fulfillment Easy

In order to get what you want, you need to know *exactly* what you want. This can be harder than many engineers realize. This lesson teaches you:

- The importance of reducing fulfillment friction, presented through the perspective of the person fulfilling the favor
- What it means to make fulfillment of your favor easy, shown with an in-depth example covering a common engineering ask
- How the spectrum behind fulfillment friction reduction is actually incredibly deep, especially if you're creative
- Ideas to make fulfillment easier with examples covering 3 more very commonly asked for favors

Asking Great Questions [Part 10] - Put Yourself On The Line

When you ask a question, you are asking some human(s) out there to spend some time providing you with an answer. To make this process go better, you must do everything you can to prevent the interaction from being one-sided in the wrong direction. This lesson teaches you:

- How to swap the time dynamics behind a question in your favor
- What it looks like to offer your time within a question, explained with an in-depth example
- When and how to take the more extreme route of offering synchronous time, explained with an in-depth example

[Become A Go-To Person 18/18] More Resources

- 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/)
- Discover more from Jordan across [videos, articles, and livestreams here](https://read.highgrowthengineer.com/p/resources-and-deals?open=false#%C2%A7find-me-in-other-media).
- Get a discount on Jordan's newsletter here: <https://read.highgrowthengineer.com/taro>

[Become A Go-To Person 15/18] - Other Ways To Build Expertise

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/)

[Become A Go-To Person 11/18] Exactly What To Do - Be Visible

[Become A Go-To Person 8/18] Other Ways To Develop Exptertise

[Become A Go-To Person 7/18] How Expertise Translates To Influence

Tech Lead Blueprint 4/17 - TL Archetypes

Connect with Lalit on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/lalitkundu/>

Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer [Part 18] - Procrastination

We all learn how to procrastinate in school - It feels good to wait until the last minute to get something done as this means you got to use all that initial time to have fun! This lesson teaches you:

- Why people procrastinate
- The main tactic to apply to avoid procrastination
- What to do if you simply can't stop procrastinating

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 17] - Go Deeper: Follow Through

Congratulations on making it to the final lesson of the course! This lesson teaches you:

- The key takeaways of being an effective tech lead
- Technical items you can take on to start being a better tech lead
- Leadership items you can take on to start being a better tech lead

For further support, start career discussions in the Taro forum to get top-tier advice: <https://www.jointaro.com/questions/create/>

You can also go deeper with our related courses:

- [\[Course\] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [\[Course\] System Design Masterclass: Shipping Real Features To Production](https://www.jointaro.com/course/frontend-system-design-masterclass-building-playlists/)
- [\[Course\] Effective Communication For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)
- [\[Course\] Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/nail-your-promotion-as-a-software-engineer/)

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 6] - Be The Code Guardian

As a tech lead, you are ultimately responsible for all the code that is delivered. The tricky part is that you need to do this without simply writing all of it. This lesson teaches you:

- The role tech leads play when it comes to cleaning up the code and paying down tech debt
- A high-level, multiplicative lever tech leads should pull to enforce code quality
- The in-the-weeds tactic tech leads need to constantly use to keep code quality high

To get better at code reviews, particularly those outside of your immediate domain, read through this: ["How to give better code reviews without full business context?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/vio35mw1SYWM8AYojB2w/how-to-give-better-code-reviews-without-full-business-context/)

Paper Reading: Beyond Next-Token Prediction: Enhancing Language Models with Multi-Token Outputs

Session led by: [Lucia Mocz](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-mocz-ph-d-35a98a1b6/)

In this talk, we will look at groundbreaking research on advancing the training of large language models. Traditional models like GPT and Llama rely on next-token prediction, which can be expensive and time-consuming, but this research suggests a more efficient approach: multi-token prediction.

**Key Highlights:**

- **Enhanced Sample Efficiency**: Training models to predict multiple future tokens at once increases sample efficiency, leading to significant improvements in downstream capabilities.
- **Innovative Architecture**: By employing n independent output heads on a shared model trunk, better performance with no additional training time can be achieved.
- **Superior Performance**: 13B parameter models outperform strong baselines on generative benchmarks, solving 12% more problems on HumanEval and 17% more on MBPP.
- **Algorithmic Reasoning**: Multi-token prediction fosters the development of induction heads and enhances algorithmic reasoning capabilities.
- **Faster Inference**: Models trained with 4-token prediction are up to 3 times faster during inference, even with large batch sizes.

Join us to explore how multi-token prediction can revolutionize language model training and performance, especially for coding and natural language tasks.

Don't miss this opportunity to learn about the future of language model training and its practical applications!\
\
Paper: [**https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.19737**](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.19737)

Maximizing a Severance Package 7/9 - Common Asks and Gives

- 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)

[Timeless Career Advice] What to Learn

[Timeless Career Advice] What Do Software Engineers Do?

Write A Stellar Resume As A Software Engineer [Part 12] - Esoteric Terms

As a software engineer, it is absolutely critical for you to write a resume that is incredibly easy to understand, particularly for the recruiter (who, as a reminder, is a non-technical person). Unfortunately, it's very easy for engineers to get this wrong. This lesson teaches you:

- Why engineers often unintentionally make their resumes near impossible to understand
- What esoteric terms are and the categories they fall into
- How to get rid of esoteric terms from your resume with an in-depth example

Write A Stellar Resume As A Software Engineer [Part 11] - Self Ratings

There's tremendous pressure to stand out with your resume as a software engineer, especially as you usually need to beat out 100+ or even 1000+ other engineers to get an interview opportunity. This lesson teaches you:

- Why self ratings don't add any value to a resume
- The dangers behind self ratings on a resume, particularly with more junior engineers

Managing Up: Giving Upward Feedback

Taro members get a discount to join [Ethan's Level Up community](https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/taro25)

Ethan's other courses on Taro:

- <https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-growth-and-promotion-recipe-magic-loop/>
- <https://www.jointaro.com/course/maximizing-a-severance-package/>

Negotiation Course: Negotiating With A Single Offer

It is possible to negotiate with a single offer, but you are in a weaker position here since you don’t have as much leverage.

- Use "market data" to justify a higher pay, and talk about how your experience and background should justify being on the top end of that range.
- Talk about the ***potential*** of other opportunities that you could pursue but you choose not to for the sake of expediency and the fact that you like this job. "*I could get another offer, but I don't want to if I you can give me a competitive offer.*"

Two scenarios to consider:

1. If you’re currently employed, use that to your advantage. Pretend that you like your current job (maybe you actually do!) and that you have to be "pried away". Talk about what you're leaving on the table, e.g. unvested equity or bonus payouts.
2. The **Close the Deal** tactic is nice here. "For an extra $10k, you can snatch me away instantly."

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.