Become An Open Source Master [Part 14] - ReactJS Open Source Repo Case Study

We can make a huge difference to an open source project by spreading the good news about it. Sharing our experiences and knowledge about the project can help it gain more interest and adoption. Even seemingly small actions, like writing a blog post or giving a presentation, can have a significant impact on the project's success.

React project stars: <https://star-history.com/#facebook/react&Date>

Connect with James:

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

How To Build A Strong Manager Relationship (From An Ex-Amazon VP)

The relationship you have with your manager is the most important one in your professional life. So why do so many tech workers **make obvious mistakes** when dealing with their manager?

In this session, Ethan will share strategies and tips to:

1. Build trust with your manager, even if you've had challenges in the past
2. Drive your professional development and earn investment
3. Navigate difficult conversations and manage up effectively.

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) managed teams of 800+ while a Vice President (VP) at Amazon. Across 15 years, he grew from manager to Vice President, providing executive leadership for multiple $500M+ businesses. In that process, he's managed hundreds of people directly across dozens of changes in his own management chain.

Ethan is now a career development expert and teacher. Watch his course about layoffs on Taro: [**Make The Most Of A Layoff: Maximize Your Severance Package**](https://www.jointaro.com/course/maximizing-a-severance-package/)

Learn more:

- Watch the [**interview series with Ethan about eng management on YouTube**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8McoEVUiYQ&list=PLMrAfqhZjqfIkD-0p0tJ_zqvPnBdYsixT&index=4).
- Ethan's live cohort-based course "Stuck at Senior Manager" is open for enrollment now: [**https://maven.com/ethan-evans/break-through-to-executive**](https://maven.com/ethan-evans/break-through-to-executive)
- Taro members get a discount to join [**Ethan's Level Up community**](https://levelupwithethanevans.substack.com/taro25)

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 14] - Manage Expectations

As a tech lead, you will have a ton of things to do and not a ton of time. Because of this, you need to be crystal clear about what you're working on, why you're working on it, and when you're going to have that work done. This lesson teaches you:

- The danger and hugely negative consequences of mismanaging expectations
- Proactive mechanisms you can use to maintain alignment around expectations
- How to properly react and communicate when expectations are falling through

Understanding ESPP - 85k Salary Example

This segment breaks down a numerical example of how **Employee Stock Purchase Plans (ESPPs)** work in practice. While ESPPs may offer modest financial gains, they remain a valuable benefit—especially at companies that don't provide RSUs.

- **Basic Example:** With an $85,000 base salary, contributing the maximum 10% ($8,500) into an ESPP with a 15% discount allows purchase of 100 shares at $85/share when market price is $100/share—equating to $10,000 worth of stock.
- **Annual Gain:** This results in an immediate $1,500 gain, illustrating the perk's effective “free money” nature through discounted stock purchasing.
- **Complex Structure:** Though ESPPs involve layers such as salary withholding, fund accumulation, and exercise schedules, the benefit is relatively straightforward once broken down.
- **Limited Upside:** Because ESPPs are tied to salary and offer a modest discount, the overall financial impact is smaller than RSUs—yet still meaningful.
- **Prevalence at Non-Big Tech Companies:** Many companies, particularly outside top-tier tech, offer ESPPs instead of RSUs. For example, PayPal provided only ESPP (no RSUs) to new grads eight years ago.

Different Roles, Different Focus

In this section, we explore how the emphasis on the four pillars of ML interview success shifts depending on the specific role we’re targeting. The course is designed to help us align our strengths with the expectations of different ML career paths.

- We learn that **ML infrastructure roles** prioritize software engineering and system design, as these roles focus on building scalable and reliable ML platforms.
- **Product-focused ML roles** value end-to-end system design and business impact, requiring us to connect our technical solutions directly to user outcomes.
- For **research-oriented roles**, a deep dive into ML theory and algorithms is essential, with an emphasis on innovation and pushing technical boundaries.
- We’ll identify our personal strengths and tailor our preparation to highlight the most relevant ones for our target role.
- We’ll also work on filling any skill gaps so we can enter interviews with greater confidence and a clear strategy.

If you want to learn even more from Yayun:

- Book 1 on 1 career guidance with her here: <https://calendly.com/your-friend-yayun/1on1>
- Follow her on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/yayunjin/>

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 11] - Simple Is Complex

Engineers tend to get excited for complex ideas and bored with simple ones. However, there's more to the technical realm than simply "complex" and "simple". This lesson teaches you:

- How simplicity and complexity aren't a binary spectrum
- How complexity can actually be created from simplicity if you come in with the right mentality
- Why striving for a certain level of quality always brings a meaningful degree of complexity, explained with how Alex made 60,000+ lines of code changes to grow Random Name Picker to a 1 million+ user app
- Why the "simple is complex" mentality is critical towards becoming a truly strong engineer

Come Up With 500k+ User Project Ideas [Part 14] - Your Superpower: Thinking Small

As a software engineer building things on the side, there is no chance that you'll take down Google. The good news is that you don't have to in order to achieve massive career benefits with side projects. This lesson teaches you:

- The massive advantage you have over Big Tech companies when it comes to the types of products you can build
- Why taking the more humble outcome with a lower success ceiling is much better for you tactically (and statistically) when it comes to building side projects

Taro Book Club: Designing Data Intensive Applications - Chapter 1

Discussion led by: [**Ankur Agrawal**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/erankuragr/) & [**Raj Shah**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/therajshah/)\
\
In this #taro-bookclub discussion, we'll go over Chapter 1 of the book [**"Designing Data-Intensive Applications"**](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-Data-Intensive-Applications-Reliable-Maintainable/dp/1449373321) by Martin Kleppmann. This chapter is about Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Applications and will provide good mental models to think about reliability, scalability and maintainability of Distributed Data Systems.

Here's the agenda:

- We’ll break down and discuss the key concepts from Chapter 1.
- There will also be time for any questions and answers you might have.

Get ready for our first session on this engaging and informative book!

We hope to see you for Chapter 2 as well: [**Taro Book Club: Designing Data Intensive Applications - Chapter 2 (Data Models and Query Languages)**](https://www.jointaro.com/event/taro-book-club-designing-data-intensive-applications-chapter-2-data-models-and-query-languages/)

If you don't have a Taro Premium membership, you can get it at a discount with Ankur's special link here: [**https://www.jointaro.com/r/eventu507/**](https://www.jointaro.com/r/eventu507/)

How To Make Sure Your Engineering Manager Gives You The Proper Credit

So many software engineers are frustrated with the amount of credit their manager gives them, especially during performance review. Watch this video to ensure that this never happens again.

Here are the core points from the video:
- **Assume that your manager doesn't know what you're doing** - Engineering managers are *extremely* busy, and they are unfortunately more busy the higher quality they are (i.e. more people will want to book meetings with them if they are good). A lot of the time, they simply won't have the time to proactively scan what you're doing - They aren't unaware of your impact/problems due to bad intent.
- **Alert your manager of important events**
  - cc them on communications (Slack/Teams message, emails) and documents
  - Put them as optional on meetings (they may even want to join if it's an important meeting)
  - Share in 1:1 meetings (this is the most powerful medium)

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/)

[Timeless Career Advice] How Software Engineers Use Code

You can’t force someone into ownership.

You don’t know how much someone is carrying.\
But you feel it when they stop moving.

This isn’t about accountability frameworks or “holding people to outcomes.”\
It’s about what shuts people down—and what might help them open back up.

**Want to go deeper?**

- Explore more tools and courses at [**Taha’s Method**](https://www.tahasmethod.com/) — from interview prep to leadership development.

- Follow me on [**LinkedIn**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahahussain/) and subscribe to my weekly newsletter, [**The Conscious Leader**](https://tahahussain.substack.com/), for more lessons like these.

- Get 30% off [**Top Tech Leader**](https://bit.ly/tarotopleader) with code **ILOVETARO** (exclusive for Taro members).

DSA Crash Course [Part 76] - Counts Paths Walkthrough

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

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/count-paths?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/)

Understanding The $$$ Behind Stock Options - Hypothetical Startup Example

This video uses a hypothetical example from Carta to illustrate how startup stock options can lead to financial gain—or loss—depending on the company’s trajectory. It highlights both the upside potential of a successful IPO and the downside risk if the company underperforms.

- A fictional employee joins a startup, *Meatly*, in January 2020 and receives 16,000 stock options at a $1 strike price. After two years, 8,000 options (50%) have vested.
- When the company IPOs at $5/share, the employee exercises the options, spending $8,000 for shares now worth $40,000—a **$32,000 profit**.
- Alternatively, if the employee exercises at departure and the company later sells for only $0.75/share, the same $8,000 purchase yields **just $6,000 in value**, resulting in a **$2,000 loss**, not including taxes.
- This example underscores that **stock options carry real financial risk**, unlike RSUs, which are granted outright and do not require upfront payment.
- Employees need to carefully consider market performance and timing before exercising options to avoid losses.

Beyond 'Cracking the Coding Interview': 10+ Years Of Tech Interview Evolution

For over a decade, *Cracking the Coding Interview* has been hailed as the "bible" of interview prep. Now, its high-anticipated sequel, [**Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview**](https://www.amazon.com/dp/195570600X), is out. While the original delved deeply into coding problems, the sequel shifts its focus to teaching you how to think—both in the context of technical interviews and throughout the job search process.

In this event, the authors of [**Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview**](https://www.amazon.com/dp/195570600X) will share how tech hiring has changed in the last decade. Ask them anything about interview prep, job stuff, negotiation, or algorithms and data structures. The authors are:

- [**Gayle Laakmann McDowell**](https://www.gayle.com/), the original author of CtCI
- [**Michael Mroczka**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-mroczka/), Google engineer and top interview coach on [**interviewing.io**](https://interviewing.io/?c=taro)
- [**Aline Lerner**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinelerner/), founder of [**interviewing.io**](https://interviewing.io/?c=taro)
- [**Nil Mamano**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilmamano/), Google engineer and algorithm researcher

Redeem a discounted mock interview from [interviewing.io](https://interviewing.io/?c=taro) on Taro Perks: [jointaro.com/perks/](https://www.jointaro.com/perks/)

DSA Crash Course [Part 81] - Summing Squares Approach

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

> Write a function, *summing_squares*, that takes a target number as an argument. The function should return the minimum number of perfect squares that sum to the target. A perfect square is a number of the form (i\*i) where i &gt;= 1.
>
> For example: 1, 4, 9, 16 are perfect squares, but 8 is not a perfect square.
>
> Given 12:
>
> summing_squares(12) -&gt; 3
>
> The minimum squares required for 12 is three, by doing 4 + 4 + 4.
>
> Another way to make 12 is 9 + 1 + 1 + 1, but that requires four perfect squares.

```
summing_squares(8) # -> 2
```

```
summing_squares(9) # -> 1
```

```
summing_squares(12) # -> 3
```

```
summing_squares(1) # -> 1
```

```
summing_squares(31) # -> 4
```

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/)

How Rigid Should You Be With Your Coding / Content Schedule?

As a 17 year veteran of Amazon, Steve understands seasonality. Q4, the holiday season, is crunch time. There’s a huge pressure on Amazon employees to keep up with demand, and engineers will routinely spend long hours to ensure stability and quality.

The key to doing sustained creative work is to lean in and lean out of periods of intense work, at the right times. Amazon employees know that Q4 will end, and therefore, the crunchtime will end within a few months.

Similarly, for content creation or writing code, **it’s important to segment your schedule into chunks where you can create a deadline or “crunch time”.**

Another perspective is to think about quantity vs quality. For your side projects or content creation endeavors, it’s worth being rigid for a bit (“a commit everyday” or “a video every week”), but it’s also worth changing the routine after some time.

Burnout happens when people don’t see an end in sight from a stressful period. 

- [Learn about burnout](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xsbM1ctL9HYa6d7E9ejh/the-silent-killer-of-too-many-software-engineer-careers-burnout/)
- [Avoid burnout](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CfPvvtIW02MxVwR1fnP4/how-can-i-avoid-burning-myself-out/)
- [3 Mistakes Engineers To Avoid (from an Eng Director)](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/lhj2batcsdMiEOSKOGLo/3-mistakes-too-many-software-engineers-make-from-a-director-at-airbnb/)

Connect with Steve: 
- [Taro](https://www.jointaro.com/profile/aZJL3ucq9dQnscO09F4JDRkgPo72/)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered)

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 10] - Dogfooding

It's hard to get meaningful feedback to improve on your side project when it's just starting out. However, there is a way that you should really pursue as the developer. This lesson teaches you:

- The critical way for you to self-power leveling up your side project's quality
- Why dogfooding was an instrumental part of Facebook's and Instagram's success (and why it made the engineers better)
- Tips for dogfooding effectively and finding concrete ways to make your side project better

Asking Great Questions [Part 12] - Length Balancing

One of the most important attributes of a question is its length, and the reason why is simple: The length of a question is directly connected to how much time a helper needs to spend answering it. This lesson teaches you:

- Why questions that are too short are bad
- Why questions that are too long are bad
- What to do if your question seems too short
- What to do if your question seems too long
- What a healthy question length is, demonstrated with a real-world example
- A tactic you can use to keep the length of your question in-check while still including a lot of important context

DSA Crash Course [Part 85] - Array Stepper Approach

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

> Write a function, *array_stepper*, that takes in a list of numbers as an argument. You start at the first position of the list. The function should return a boolean indicating whether or not it is possible to reach the last position of the list. When situated at some position of the list, you may take a maximum number of steps based on the number at that position.
>
> For example, given:
>
> - idx =  0  1  2  3  4  5
> - numbers = \[2, 4, 2, 0, 0, 1\]
>
> The answer is True.
>
> We start at idx 0, we could take 1 step or 2 steps forward.
>
> The correct choice is to take 1 step to idx 1.
>
> Then take 4 steps forward to the end at idx 5.

```
array_stepper([2, 4, 2, 0, 0, 1]) # -> True
```

```
array_stepper([2, 3, 2, 0, 0, 1]) # -> False
```

```
array_stepper([3, 1, 3, 1, 0, 1]) # -> True
```

```
array_stepper([4, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 0, 4]) # -> True
```

```
array_stepper([4, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 0, 4]) # -> 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/**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvin-zablan-b73a92117/)

DSA Crash Course [Part 78] - Max Path Sum Walkthrough

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

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/max-path-sum?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/)

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.