Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 15] - Putting It All Together: Idea Scorecard

You now have a side project idea. How can you tell if it's good? This lesson teaches you:

- A systematic scorecard you can use to grade the quality of a side project idea
- What a bad side project idea looks like, demonstrated with concrete scorecard examples
- What a good side project idea looks like, demonstrated with concrete scorecard examples

Clear Communication For SWEs [Part 6] - The Pyramid Principle

In this video, I explain the Pyramid Principle, a powerful communication framework that structures information hierarchically for clear and logical communication. I discuss how to apply it in presentations and communications, emphasizing starting with the main idea, supporting it with arguments, and providing detailed evidence.

**Action requested:** Understand and apply the Pyramid Principle for efficient and effective communication.

Connect with me on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-wiens/>

[Timeless Career Advice] What Do Software Engineers Do?

Did You Just Get Laid Off? This Is How You Should Think About It

Getting laid off is rough and a huge blow to your mental state. This video covers how to have the proper mentality if you are laid off, so you can bounce back.

Here are the core points:
- **Being laid off is not a reflection of who you are** - Who gets cuts in a mass layoff is effectively random, and incredible software engineers will get hit by them all the time. *There is absolutely nothing wrong with you if you get laid off.* Don't let some out-of-touch tech executive's bad decision determine your self-worth.
- **You *will* recover** - This is especially true in the tech industry where severance packages tend to be quite competitive, even generous. Use the time to really process what happened, find peace, and figure out your next move. The silver lining of being laid off is that the door has started opening to your next opportunity: You just need to walk through it.

Related resources:
- ["Aftermath of layoffs?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/7Gav09HFuLlGDlM749UY/aftermath-of-layoffs/)
- ["How open should we be to recruiters about employment status?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Lo8W7fMRFbcwUQ9WyTVF/how-open-should-we-be-to-recruiters-about-employment-status/)

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 5] - Detailed Breakdown

**In this lesson, we'll delve into the intricacies of career advancement and explore strategies to maximize your impact and recognition.**

- **Understanding Impact Dynamics:** We'll examine the relationship between the value you create and the rewards you receive, considering factors like organizational culture, business objectives, and individual performance.
- **Increasing Your Luck Surface Area:** We'll explore techniques to increase your visibility and opportunities for advancement, including effective communication, networking, and self-promotion.
- **Sustainable Career Growth:** We'll discuss strategies for maintaining a healthy work-life balance, building strong relationships, and continuously developing your skills to ensure long-term success.

By understanding these key principles and implementing practical strategies, you can position yourself for significant career growth and fulfillment.

If you want to get personalized support from Yogi, you can reach out to him at [coaching@yogisharma.com](mailto:coaching@yogisharma.com) or schedule an introductory call to dive into your situation at <https://tinyurl.com/meetyogi>.

What To Do If You Don’t Mesh Well With Your Manager

This clip discusses the **importance of manager-report alignment**, especially around communication preferences and expectations. A common failure mode arises when managers assume their team members operate and think the same way they do, without checking for alignment.

- **Reciprocity can backfire without context**: Managers often expect others to operate as they did when they were individual contributors—such as sending frequent updates—without recognizing that not everyone shares the same style or comfort level.
- **Avoiding mislabeling of behavior**: What feels like diligence to one person (e.g., weekly updates) might feel like micromanagement to another. This mismatch can create tension or disengagement if not addressed.
- **Meta conversations build alignment**: Discussing communication styles, feedback preferences, career goals, and working habits helps avoid misunderstandings. These conversations create a shared context for more effective collaboration.
- **Feedback delivery should be customized**: Some individuals prefer written feedback over verbal critiques. Adapting delivery style to the recipient’s comfort increases the chance that the feedback is received productively.
- **Mutual respect strengthens manager-report relationships**: Respecting differences in working style and proactively aligning on expectations can prevent unnecessary friction and improve team dynamics.

Asking Great Questions [Part 18] - Put Them On A Pedestal

If you are asking someone for a favor, they are almost certainly special in some way. This means that they're probably getting asked for favors from many, many people besides you. So how can you stand out? This lesson teaches you:

- An easy and free way to make your favor request stand out
- Why putting someone on a pedestal is so powerful
- What it means to put someone on a pedestal in your question, explained with an in-depth example

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/>

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 3] - About Yogi

**In this section, we learned about the instructor's qualifications and experiences that make them credible to teach about creating value and receiving rewards.**

Yogi has:

- **Academic Background:** A Ph.D. in theoretical computer science and experience in teaching.
- **Industry Experience:** Worked at Facebook for several years, gaining insights into large-scale systems and organizational dynamics.
- **Personal Experience:** Overcame challenges and learned valuable lessons about career progression and negotiation.
- **Coaching Experience:** Helped numerous individuals and organizations improve their performance and achieve their goals.

By sharing their knowledge and experiences, the instructor aims to help learners develop the skills and mindset needed to create value and receive the rewards they deserve.

If you want to get personalized support from Yogi, you can reach out to him at [coaching@yogisharma.com](mailto:coaching@yogisharma.com) or schedule an introductory call to dive into your situation at <https://tinyurl.com/meetyogi>.

DSA Crash Course [Part 70] - Tribonacci Walkthrough

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

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/tribonacci?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/**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/)

Not Getting Stuff Done? Find Someone To Call You Out

Why are accountability partners so helpful when it comes to productivity?

True or false: A good accountability partner is willing to shame you a bit sometimes.

How do good accountability partners help with excuses?

- Finding an accountability partner is one of the most powerful ways you can shore up your productivity.
  - You can understand your own potential when you see what your peers can do
  - They can offer help when you're feeling low or stuck
- Humans inherently don't like letting other people down: We're a social species. Just having someone who's expecting or even counting on you to make decent progress regularly makes you far more motivated to actually get stuff done out of fear of disappointing them.

Related resources:
- ["How do you network effectively within a company?"](https://link.jointaro.com/Hr1nr53D7sfQAEv3A)
- ["How can I better network with other software engineers in the Bay Area?"](https://link.jointaro.com/42JLsbppRMwAJAPUA)

How Software Engineers Are Measured For Promotion

What does additive value look like for a software engineer?

What's the main metric used to evaluate engineers for promotion and their overall seniority?

What kind of value is the following: Creating a team-wide initiative to write more unit tests, organizing regular hackathons to write hundreds of tests at once alongside creating a dashboard to measure which tests catch the most bugs

What kind of value is the following: Helping the company's ambitious hiring goal for web engineers by interviewing dozens of React developers in just a few weeks

What kind of value is the following: Taking an incredibly vague product idea and refining it into a well-defined product spec by bringing together dozens of engineers, product managers, data scientists, and designers and getting alignment on what the value proposition is and how that manifests as a product experience

What kind of value is the following: Building out the iOS portion of adding Twitter login to onboarding flow for your company's core app after getting high-quality mocks and requirements for it

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 4] - Learning Objectives

**In this course, we aim to empower you to achieve your career goals by focusing on three key objectives:**

- **Mindset Shift:** We'll help you shift your perspective and adopt a growth mindset, believing in your ability to achieve your desired outcomes.
- **Tactical Strategies:** You'll learn practical strategies and tactics to effectively navigate your career and achieve your goals.
- **Discretionary Application:** We'll guide you on how to apply these strategies judiciously, recognizing the right moments to leverage them for maximum impact.

By focusing on these areas, we'll equip you with the tools and knowledge to succeed in your career.

If you want to get personalized support from Yogi, you can reach out to him at [coaching@yogisharma.com](mailto:coaching@yogisharma.com) or schedule an introductory call to dive into your situation at <https://tinyurl.com/meetyogi>.

[Part 8] Meta Intern Success Series - Rahul's Internship + Current Economy

I interned at Meta in the summer of 2013 (it was called Facebook in my day…). I barely got the return offer at the end of the summer. My reflections on what I could have done better: 
- Too much back and forth on my code review. I made the same types of mistakes in the code I wrote, and I occasionally tried to pushback if a reviewer requested changes. 
- Not communicating with enough with teammates. In addition to my intern manager, I should have had a regular 1:1 with the person who was primarily reviewing all my code. 

What I did well: 
- I was responsive. I replied to messages + comments quickly, and I tried to share my insights (from my project) where possible.. 
- I was a good culture fit: I built a substantial hackathon project which garnered some attention.

Advice for the current economic condition for software engineer interns: 
- Focus on cultivating relationships with people on your team, so they are able to refer you. 
- Leverage the work you did in Meta to more easily land interviews at competitive companies.

[Go back to part 1 of the Meta intern series](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/DPcsvbf5IKk57xcqyiAC/part-1-meta-intern-success-series-internship-program-overview/)

Grow From Senior To Staff Engineer [Part 21] - Plot Your Growth Journey

It can be overwhelming looking at all the skills you need to build to grow from senior to staff as both the breadth and depth of the skill development you need to do are massive. This lesson teaches you:

- How to tactically grow 1 step at a time from senior to staff and long-term
- What skills you should develop first to start (or continue) going down your senior to staff journey

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 11] - Set The Direction

One of the crowning growth moments for software engineers is when they become less focused on *how* to get where they need to be and more focused on *where* they should be going to begin with. That direction component is a huge part of a tech lead's responsibilities. This lesson teaches you:

- What it means to define good direction for a project
- The components behind effective direction-setting for a project
- How to decompose a goal into actionable items
- The ingredients behind empowering your team to work cohesively

To dive deeper into project management: [\[Taro Top 10\] Project Management](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/4CtqCnUYwqedd0my2EEw/)

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 26] - Peer Feedback Squad

In order to get promoted as a software engineer, you need several important people to have your back. This is especially important for senior level and above promotions where you might need 10+ pieces of glowing feedback. This lesson teaches you:

- How to identify the critical peers you need to vouch for you in performance review
- What "feel good" and ultimately near useless feedback looks like, which is what a lot of stagnant engineers are stuck with
- What powerful, meaningful feedback that actually makes a difference in promotion cases looks like
- How your peer feedback should look based on the seniority of the peer giving it to you

Asking Great Questions [Part 14] - What Have You Tried?

If you don't do it right, asking questions can seriously damage your reputation among the team and mark you as a low-performer. This lesson teaches you:

- Why engineers in particular are extremely allergic to low-quality questions
- How low-quality questions can put you in the target of a PIP (performance improvement plan)
- A simple way to identify if a question is low-quality or high-quality based on its overall vibe
- 3 core tactics you should try if possible before asking a question
- What it means to masterfully incorporate what you've tried into a question, explained with an incredibly in-depth example

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 12] - Do A Search

The key towards building any successful product is to make something people want. Turns out that this actually isn't too difficult when it comes to side projects. This lesson teaches you:

- How to do a basic search to find relevant competitors and inspiration
- How to find core keywords that people use to find products in your space
- A simple, free way to understand the traffic of a website and see if it's worth building a similar webapp

You can download the Similarweb extension here: <https://www.similarweb.com/corp/extension/>

Become An Open Source Master [Part 13] - Dipping Your Toes Into A Project

We can contribute to open source projects in many ways, even without writing code. We can triage issues, work on documentation, improve the website design, or provide translations. We can also become an advocate for the project by promoting it on social media, writing articles, or creating training courses. By contributing to the broader ecosystem, we can help the project succeed and build our own reputation in the community.

Connect with James:

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

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.