Becoming a Staff Engineer at Facebook

In this lesson, **Adam Ernst**, Software Engineer at **Meta**, reflects on joining Facebook just before its IPO during the company's pivotal transition from an HTML5-based mobile app to a fully native iOS application. He explains how solving a major scalability challenge with Apple's Core Data framework led to his rapid promotion to Staff Engineer (E6). Adam also shares practical insights on influencing engineering teams without formal authority, driving large-scale architectural change, and building credibility through data, empathy, and hands-on execution.

- **Solving Large-Scale Engineering Challenges:** Adam joined Facebook during the native iOS rewrite and led the replacement of Apple's Core Data with a custom immutable model architecture ("Mem Models") that could scale to support hundreds of engineers and an ever-growing application.
- **Driving Adoption Through Influence:** Rather than relying on authority, Adam convinced teams to adopt the new architecture by understanding their concerns, presenting performance data, communicating face-to-face, and demonstrating why Apple's standard solutions no longer met Meta's scale.
- **Lead by Doing the Work:** One of Adam's most effective leadership strategies was minimizing friction for other teams. By implementing migrations himself and presenting completed solutions for review, he accelerated adoption and built trust across the organization.

Original podcast link: [**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA_OYJF3Mmw**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA_OYJF3Mmw)

Embodying The Leader

If you want direct interview support from Alex and Uzair, take their live Maven course with discount code **TARO10**: <https://maven.com/alex-kliotzkin/acing-em-interviews>

In this lesson, we learn how to effectively showcase leadership qualities during engineering manager interviews by understanding the most commonly assessed leadership abilities. Interviewers are assigned specific attributes to evaluate, and crafting thoughtful, real-world stories that highlight these traits is essential.

- **We prepare stories around 9 common leadership abilities**, including growing talent, delivering under pressure, and influencing stakeholders, knowing these form the backbone of most behavioral interview questions.
- **We ensure each story highlights not just outcomes, but the judgment and systems we used**, especially in situations involving conflict, ambiguity, or strategic risk.
- **We practice showcasing our resilience and decision-making**, such as dealing with underperformers, making fast-paced calls under time pressure, or navigating conflict with senior stakeholders.
- **We recognize that good answers require emotional maturity**, thoughtful communication, and the ability to reflect on learnings—not perfection or bravado.
- **We strive to embody senior leadership through our communication style**, avoiding over-explaining, exaggeration, or emotional volatility, and focusing instead on clarity, calmness, and authenticity.

So What Do Engineering Managers Do?

If you want direct interview support from Alex and Uzair, take their live Maven course with discount code **TARO10**: <https://maven.com/alex-kliotzkin/acing-em-interviews>

An engineering manager’s role extends far beyond attending meetings or writing reports—it centers on one core responsibility: *Ensuring the team delivers*. This requires balancing accountability, leadership, and adaptability across multiple domains.

- **Facilitate Decision-Making and Own Processes:** EMs don’t always make every decision, but they must facilitate the decision-making process and ensure team adherence to defined practices like quality standards or definitions of done.
- **Own Delivery Outcomes:** Regardless of who does what on the team, the EM is ultimately responsible for all deliverables—both successes and failures.
- **Bridge Business and Engineering:** EMs connect the technical team with the broader business, helping engineers understand customer needs, product lifecycles, and why building the *right* thing is more important than just building it right.
- **Ensure Product Integrity and Fill Gaps:** Maintaining consistent product quality across releases is part of the EM's responsibility. They must also step into roles as needed—whether that’s scrum master, product owner, or project manager—to remove blockers and enable progress.
- **Represent the Team and Grow Talent:** EMs act as the external face of the team to stakeholders and leadership while also coaching and developing individual engineers to help them grow in their careers.

Motivation

If you want direct interview support from Alex and Uzair, take their live Maven course with discount code **TARO10**: <https://maven.com/alex-kliotzkin/acing-em-interviews>

In this video, I discuss the common challenges engineers face when preparing for engineering manager interviews, highlighting that the criteria for these roles differ significantly from those of individual contributor positions. Many engineers are unaware of these differences, which can lead to confusion and poor performance during the interview process. I emphasize the importance of understanding these unique expectations to improve your chances of success. I encourage viewers to reflect on their own experiences and consider how they can better prepare for these types of interviews.

The AI Frontier: Get Paid To Build Smarter LLMs

The future of AI is being built by a handful of companies: OpenAI, Anthropic, and DeepMind, among others. One of the core ingredients for improving the performance of LLMs is the use of reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF).

Join us for a live conversation with Mercor's cofounder and CTO, [**Adarsh Hiremath**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adarsh-h-623941204) hosted by Taro's cofounder and CEO, [**Rahul Pandey**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpandey1234/). Mercor is a key partner to enable RLHF for many frontier model companies. As part of this, Mercor offers 1000s of part-time, remote-friendly roles with competitive compensation.

This is a new type of white-collar work that involves debugging, validating, and creating scenarios for LLMs. As the capabilities of models improve, the expertise required to train models keeps increasing. One of the highest-priority areas is around coding, which means Software Engineers have a special role to play in this type of work.

This event explains the pros and cons of AI lab gig work, what exactly the work entails, and how much you can earn.

Some topics we’ll cover:

- Typical hourly rates and the compensation model
- Project-to-project variability
- Unique challenges of remote collaboration in this type of work
- What does the day-to-day look like with this type of work?
- How does this work impact the development of LLMs and AI agents?
- How will this work evolve over the next 5 years?

There will also be time for open Q&A from the audience.

Mercor is an AI-powered recruiting platform that has become one of the largest sources for human labor for foundation model companies. Mercor has raised more than $100 million dollars and is located in San Francisco, CA. Explore [**relevant jobs on Mercor here**](https://work.mercor.com/?referralCode=91aab11f-ce55-40b3-9c2d-f74576cac28f) (100+ Software Engineering jobs available).

Gilad’s Take: Missed Estimates

In this exercise, we explore how to manage an individual contributor who is consistently underperforming—missing estimates or failing in execution. This presents a valuable opportunity for us to create both individual and team-wide impact.

- We help the individual grow by **improving their estimation and execution skills**—through coaching, targeted training, mentorship, and root cause analysis.
- We aim to **understand the specific failure points** by collecting data and maintaining an open yet high-bar conversation with the individual.
- We don't just focus on the individual; we **expand our lens to the team**, recognizing that underperformance affects teammates who rely on timely outputs.
- To support the broader organization, we look for ways to **minimize the blast radius**, reducing the negative impact on the surrounding team while working toward resolution.
- This is about **maximizing delta**: helping one person improve while also protecting and enabling the rest of the group to thrive.

If you want to learn more from Gilad, he shares free leadership advice daily on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/giladnaor/?utm_source=taro&utm_medium=course&utm_campaign=cta) and weekly on the[ δeltas newsletter](https://posts.managementdeltas.com/?utm_source=taro&utm_medium=course&utm_campaign=cta)

Let them carry it. You’ve done your part.

You’ve seen the pieces.\
Now we pull them together.

This final act is about how ownership moves—how everything you’ve practiced shows up when things get messy, unclear, or just plain stuck.

It’s less about new ideas, more about recognizing the patterns, and deciding what to do when they land on your desk.

**Workbook:** [Creator’s Orientation](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sysZuPhlrLZbU5stxlJBqg3LAcGTy_S7/view?usp=sharing)

**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).

What sounds like help can feel like control.

At some point, support starts to sound like hovering.\
And it’s hard to see when you’ve crossed that line.

This section takes a closer look at that moment—when helping quietly turns into handling.\
It’s more common than you think. Especially when you care.

**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).

Become A Debugging Master [Part 18] - Build The Infra

Building debugging infrastructure is a powerful way to level up your team and career. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Invest in infrastructure like logging, dashboards, session recordings, bisect tools, and experiment tracking to make debugging easier for everyone

- Plan ahead by adding useful logging into products before bugs occur to speed up investigations and root cause analysis

- Funnel logging is especially valuable because it formalizes the end-to-end data flow, making it easier to spot where issues happen

- Building internal tools, even simple ones like the Log Insight tool at Meta, can lead to major team-wide adoption and career milestones

- Internal tooling projects are great side projects because they serve engineers directly, have less red tape, and can be very high impact

Rahul's internal tool case study: [\[Case Study\] Building A Meta Internal Tool To Empower An Entire Org: Staff Promotion Story](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/qvp2quodqAEWSkN7sayt/case-study-building-a-meta-internal-tool-to-empower-an-entire-org-staff-promotion-story/)

Become A Debugging Master [Part 16] - Retrospect

One of the best ways to turn a bug fix into long-term engineering growth is to reflect on what happened and how to prevent it next time. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- After a fix, run a retrospective to figure out how to prevent or better handle similar issues in the future
- Writing a clean, detailed doc about the incident helps future engineers quickly learn without digging through scattered updates
- Big tech companies like Meta normalize failure and use formal SEV reviews to systematically improve after incidents

Meta's SEV culture: <https://atscaleconference.com/videos/metas-sev-culture-how-todays-sevs-create-tomorrows-reliability/>

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 17] - Ask Good Questions

The most basic way to get help is to ask a question. This has huge implications on networking and relationship building. This lesson teaches you:

- Why it's extremely punishing to ask bad questions
- How asking good questions can actually be an asset and make you look *better* to other people, earning you respect and trust
- The difference between a good and bad question, demonstrated with an in-depth example

Take the question asking course here: [Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)

Expert Secrets of Successful Big Tech Interviews

**Event description**

Join this special NEW session where I interview "Mr. X" –– a former Amazon Bar Raiser and current Head of Talent Acquisition at a top tech company that must remain nameless ;)

Together, we'll take you beyond the basic tips you already know and unveil **specific, winning strategies** that actually separate you from other candidates in competitive interviews.

If you have the job skills and a solid work history (but interviewing continues to be where you "fall down" in the job search) this event will be an absolute game-changer.

**After This Masterclass, You Will:**

- **Eliminate Blind Spots**

  - **You’re making mistakes every time you interview, that you don’t see, that cost you job offers. Get ready to hear what they are.**

- **Own Your Story**

  - **The winning candidates aren’t necessarily the most skilled––they have the best stories. Soon, YOU will be that candidate.**

- **Read Minds (Literally)**

  - **Hiring managers speak in code. What they say is often totally different from what they’re thinking. Now you’ll know the difference.**

If you need additional support with your job search, you can get coaching from Alan and Kadima Careers. Join with a discount here: [**https://signup.kadimacareers.com/mQBsDvu**](https://signup.kadimacareers.com/mQBsDvu)

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 10] - Understanding The Codebase

Understanding a large codebase can feel overwhelming at first, but you don’t need to master everything to make an impact. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Use the Pareto principle to focus on the small portion of code that matters most for your project rather than trying to understand everything
- Avoid getting stuck reading docs and aim to quickly build the code, add logs, and view those logs to gain hands-on comprehension
- Identify key parts of the codebase by asking your manager or teammates for pointers and using exploratory techniques like print logging
- Treat code understanding as a “multiplayer” activity by asking questions, pair programming, reviewing commit history, and engaging with teammates
- Operating in multiplayer mode not only accelerates your learning but also strengthens relationships and increases your chances of getting a return offer

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 8] - Ask Great Questions

As an intern, asking high-quality questions is one of the most important ways to learn quickly, make progress on your project, and build strong relationships with your team. But not all questions are equal—there’s a right way to do this that can significantly increase your chances of getting a return offer. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- There’s a sweet spot between asking too few questions (and struggling in silence) and asking too many low-effort ones (which can burden your team). Most struggling interns fall on the “not asking enough” side
- Every question is a chance to build trust and relationships. They help others evaluate your growth and give you valuable feedback—so don’t underestimate their importance
- High-quality questions include just enough context (like screenshots or code snippets), are well-structured, and are ideally asked in public forums like Slack channels to benefit others too
- Avoid “leading hellos” (e.g. *“Hey, got a sec?”*). Instead, ask your question directly in the first message to reduce unnecessary back-and-forth and show respect for others’ time

Take the full question asking course here: [Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 2] - The Rise Of Internship Importance

Breaking into the junior software engineering job market in 2025 is more challenging than ever—but internships offer a powerful path forward. Here are the core points from this lesson:

- The market for junior engineers is shrinking, with companies favoring experienced hires and AI-powered productivity
- Junior engineers often cost more than the immediate value they provide, making companies cautious about full-time hires
- Internships offer a low-risk way for companies to evaluate talent and are now the most reliable path to full-time offers
- Real-world experience from internships outweighs grades, certificates, or side projects in the eyes of employers
- Top companies like FAANG will often get 80%+ of their junior engineers from their returning intern pool, and strong performance during an internship can lead to high-paying offers and long-term career growth

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 20] - When To Give Up

Side projects can give you massive, career-changing, *life-changing* benefits. However, in order for this to happen, you need to put in a lot of work. This lesson teaches you:

- The balance you need to strike when it comes to working on side projects, particularly which ones you work on
- The minimum amount of time you need to give a side project that you genuinely believe in
- A detailed list of criteria you can use to figure out whether you should abandon a side project
- Why failed side projects are actually good for you

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 15] - ASO

When it comes to mobile apps, you have a much simpler tool in your arsenal to get users. This lesson teaches you:

- What ASO (app store optimization) is
- Why ASO is much simpler than SEO
- The highest leverage thing you can do to optimize your ASO, explained with a simple example
- Basic, largely technical ways to improve your ASO, which you should just already be doing anyways as a good engineer

Make amazing mobile app pictures for free here: <https://app-mockup.com/>

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 9] - Leverage Existing Patterns

Just because you're an engineer doesn't mean that you can't be a solid product designer. This lesson teaches you:

- The easiest way to bootstrap a product design from scratch
- What the pinnacle of front-end UI/UX looks like and the company behind it
- A company you can use as inspiration for a back-end project
- A company you can use as inspiration for an ML project

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 8] - Easy Design Wins

Creating a smooth, functional user experience isn't too hard. This lesson teaches you:

- How you can make features easier to access for users, explained with an in-depth example
- How to take care of users in trickier situations, explained with an in-depth example
- What you can do to lower the cognitive burden of using your product, explained with an in-depth example

Engineer Your Ideal Tech Career [Part 13] - Daniel Tomko: Choosing The Tech Lead Route

Lastly, we have [Daniel Tomko](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko) (ex-Meta, ex-Microsoft, Head of Instruction at Formation) reflect on his experience as a Tech Lead.

He points out some common misconceptions, how the role may vary company to company, and then shares a real-life example of the great magnitude and scale of impact that being a tech lead can drive.

Looking for mentorship from tech’s top engineers (like Daniel!) + 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.