How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 10] - Be An Excellent Communicator

One way to envision your role as a tech lead is that you're the "glue" that holds the team together. The core way that glue manifests is through your communication. This lesson teaches you:

- Why excellent communication is vital towards "conducting the orchestra"
- How to communicate empathetically
- How to communicate clearly
- The right amount to communicate (it's often higher than you think)

Turn yourself into a communication master with our course: [\[Course\] Effective Communication For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 9] - It's All About The Team

The best tech leads are selfless, not selfish. But what exactly does that mean? This lesson teaches you:

- The proper mindset to have as a tech **lead**
- A simple mental model to understand your overall goal as a tech leader
- How to divide up work as a tech lead
- What sort of tasks you should take on within a project as a tech lead

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 7] - System Design Discussions

In order to build high-quality software, you need to go through the process of system design. As a tech lead, you are expected to play a major role in this process. This lesson teaches you:

- What to avoid when participating in system design meetings (i.e. how to not add negative value)
- The overall principles to be helpful in system design discussions
- How to make yourself better at system design through relationship building
- Tactics to provide better input in system design discussions, even if you're not incredibly familiar with the underlying domain

To learn how to write a stellar tech review doc: [\[Course\] System Design Masterclass: Shipping Real Features To Production](https://www.jointaro.com/course/frontend-system-design-masterclass-building-playlists/)

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 5] - Think High-Level, Plan Long-Term

As a software engineer, it's way too easy to get lost in the weeds, fixating on details that ultimately don't matter. As a tech lead, you need to avoid rabbit holes like the plague. This lesson teaches you:

- The overall mindset tech leads must have when planning through and executing a project
- What it actually means to see the forest, not just the trees, with a detailed example from Jocelin's past
- How to own the overarching goal behind a project or workstream
- How to thoroughly think through dependencies

The Really Important Job Interview Questions Engineers Should Ask (But Don't)

Basic questions that engineers should ask when interviewing at any company. 

From the Posthog blog: <https://posthog.com/founders/what-to-ask-in-interviews>

Maximizing a Severance Package 8/9 - Can You Sue?

- 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)

Maximizing a Severance Package 2/9 - The Law

There are lots of laws around termination of employment, and they vary widely by country. Let's talk about what companies must (or must not) do when doing a Reduction in Force (RIF) or layoff.

- 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)

Become An Engineer Influencer [Part 28] - Final Words Of Encouragement

Congratulations, you made it to the end of the course, **Become An Engineer Influencer**! Connect with Michael:

- LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lin-tech/>
- Twitter: <https://x.com/\_michaellin>
- Newsletter: <https://www.michaellinwrites.com/>

Feel free to share any feedback on this course with us at [team@jointaro.com](mailto:team@jointaro.com). 

Share + get support on the Taro forum: [**joinTaro.com/questions/create/**](http://joinTaro.com/questions/create/)

Become An Engineer Influencer [Part 11] - Advice, Passion, and Build In Public

Become An Engineer Influencer [Part 3] - Strategy #1: Catering to Your Strength

Become An Engineer Influencer [Part 1] - What Is An Engineer Influencer?

An engineer influencer is an engineer who builds an audience on social media and uses that to kickstart their future startup or business.

Examples include:

- [Rahul Pandey](https://www.youtube.com/c/RahulPandeyrkp) - ex-Meta engineer, who leveraged his 60k followers on YouTube to launch Taro, a career-mentoring app that got into YCombinator

- [Gergely Orosz](https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz) - ex-Uber engineering manager, who used his Twitter following to grow his paid newsletter "The Pragmatic Engineer" to 140k readers in 18 months

- [Daniel Vassallo](https://twitter.com/dvassallo) - ex-Amazon engineer, who grew his following to 130k followers on Twitter and now teaches a highly successful cohort based class called "Portfolio of Small Bets"

Each of these engineer influencers focused on building their social media following first.

This helped them build credibility, expand their network, and guarantee them a distribution channel for their future product.

Connect with Michael:

- LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lin-tech/>
- Twitter: [https://x.com/\_michaellin](https://x.com/%5C_michaellin)
- Newsletter: <https://www.michaellinwrites.com/>

Negotiation Course: Recruiter Case Study: Insights From An Ex-Meta Recruiter

This was a conversation with a recruiter who spent several years as a recruiter at Facebook (Meta) and Pinterest. 

- The tactic of *"I will sign the offer if you meet me here"* is **effective if it's sincere**. You should be prepared to explore/defend various options around other ways the company could compel you to sign the offer.
- Exploding offers are almost always fake. Recruiters know that "**time kills all deals**" so they want to close candidates quickly. However, as a candidate, you can and should push back on an arbitrary deadline. Ask why the timing constraint exists and share why you need more time.
- Be graceful when you turn down a company's job offer. This recruiter would frequently be able to hire candidates several years later who had received an offer if they kept the relationship alive.

Negotiation Course: What's Best To Negotiate

As you think about what components in the offer to negotiate, you should consider: 

1. **Where do you have the most alignment with the company?** For example, reducing the "clawback period" for your signing bonus from 1 year to 3 months is unaligned since the company wants to incentivize you to stick around beyond 3 months. On the other hand, doubling your equity package is more aligned, since your comp will go up if the company does well.
2. **Where can the recruiter best help you?** Generally, a recruiter is powerless to adjust things like 401(k) match or performance bonuses since they're standardized across the company. However, recruiters are able to adjust salary or equity, especially if you are willing to make trade-offs between them.

Another dimension to consider is that equity is riskier than salary, so, therefore, it should translate to a higher potential reward. Stock options and RSUs fluctuate in value based on the market.

If you're ok with the risk tolerance, you are likely able to get more equity vs salary, e.g. increase your equity $20K/year vs salary $5K/year. This is an **obviously** good trade for a Big Tech (FAANG) company, which will have a fairly stable stock price.

Negotiation Course: Negotiation Is All About Leverage

The idea of **BATNA** (Best Alternative To A Negotiated Agreement) is about your ability to walk away from a deal. It is "*the most advantageous alternative that a negotiating party can take if negotiations fail and an agreement cannot be made.*" This will dictate your success in any kind of negotiation.

**As soon as you want something too badly, and the other party knows that, you will be taken advantage of**. (This is also how Venture Capitalists operate, by the way.)

There are three ingredients needed to gain leverage (and therefore successfully negotiate): 

1. Time (patience)

2. Information

3. Options (leverage)

If you have all 3, you can walk into negotiations with confidence.

Negotiation Course: Recognize The Information Asymmetry

First, let's make clear a harsh truth of the world: Companies are economically incentivized to pay you as little as possible, even if you think they're generous.

**You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you ask for.** Many candidates are unaware how high compensation can go, and therefore never ask about it. This leads to them being underpaid, and the information asymmetry is used to benefit the company.

Recruiters and companies talk to candidates every week or even every day. On the other hand, you probably only talk to a few companies every few years. So recruiters have way more information about what you’re likely making and what you may expect.

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 27] - Writing Your Packet

You have gone through the entire performance review cycle and done a ton of amazing work. So how do you now capture all the great things you've done so you have a great shot at promotion? This lesson teaches you:

- How to make writing your self-review/promotion packet easy (hint: it requires following the advice of this course)
- When to start writing your performance review materials
- How to work with your engineering manager to optimize the quality of your promotion packet

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 25] - Timing: When To Amp Things Up?

Humans have terrible memory, and software engineers (+ engineering managers) are no exception. The annoying thing is that this greatly affects how you're judged in performance review. This lesson teaches you:

- The role recency bias plays in your promotion case
- How to spend your energy over time across the performance review cycle

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 24] - Brag Journal

It is easy for people to lose track of all the great stuff you're doing as a software engineer, including you! This lesson teaches you:

- What a brag journal is
- The many reasons why brag journals are so beneficial, especially for promotion
- A lightweight "hack" you can do instead of maintaining an entirely separate brag journal

Selling for Technical Founders (B2B)

Session led by [Karthik Balachandran](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kbalachandran/)

This session is for technical founders, CTOs, and soon-to-be entrepreneurs looking to enhance their B2B selling skills.

Customer behavior is rapidly changing. Your ability to sell effectively is as crucial as the technology itself. Recognizing this expectation shift and the skill gap, we're excited to announce this session: "B2B Selling for Technical Founders"

We will cover:

- Understand the latest trends in B2B sales
- Common mistakes made by technical founders
- Building effective sales strategies

Whether you're in the early stages of your startup or looking to scale, this session will equip you with the knowledge and tools to drive your sales efforts forward.\
\
Event Page: <https://www.jointaro.com/event/selling-for-technical-founders-b2b/>

Ace Your Tech Interview As A Software Engineer [Part 26] - Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)

Many programming languages are Object-Oriented Programming languages, otherwise known as OOP languages. This lesson teaches you:

- What OOP interview rounds are and when to expect it
- The optimal way to prepare for an OOP interview round
- What a good OOP diagram looks like

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.