Paper Reading Session: Simple Testing Can Prevent Most Critical Failures

In this session, we will be discussing this paper titled "[**Simple Testing Can Prevent Most Critical Failures: An Analysis of Production Failures in Distributed Data-Intensive Systems**](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/osdi14/osdi14-paper-yuan.pdf)".

Large, production quality distributed systems still fail periodically, and do so sometimes catastrophically, where most or all users experience an outage or data loss. This paper presents the result of a comprehensive study investigating 198 randomly selected, user-reported failures that occurred on Cassandra, HBase, Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS), Hadoop MapReduce, and Redis, with the goal of understanding how one or multiple faults eventually evolve into a user-visible failure and how simple testing can prevent majority of them.

Presented by [Sudhi Awasthi](https://www.jointaro.com/p/sudhi-awasthi/), an engineer working at Bloomberg. Connect with her on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudhiawasthi/>.

Here's How To Identify A Superstar Leader

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who led teams of up to 800. Here are his two criteria to see your manager is worth working for.

**1\. Investing in people:**

- Look for a manager with a track record of **growing and promoting their team members**.
- Signs of this include:
  - Do reports of your manager often get promoted or take on higher responsibilities?
  - Does your manager actively create opportunities for your development and growth?
  - Does your manager provide good mentorship and guidance?
  - Managers with a loyal following strongly indicate their leadership qualities.

**2\. Personal trajectory:**

- Assess your manager's **career progression**.
- Look for:
  - Consistent upward movement and promotions.
  - A history of exceeding expectations and taking on greater challenges.
  - Faster-than-average advancement compared to peers.

**Reasoning:**

- A manager who invests in their people will more likely create a supportive and growth-oriented environment for you.
- A manager on a consistent upward trajectory signifies their competence and ability, potentially opening doors for their team's growth as well.

Explore more: 

- [Turning the Spotlight on Unsung Efforts: How to Be Perceived as Important and Impactful?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/G91Qd0GbID5AtnRbfGJE/turning-the-spotlight-on-unsung-efforts-how-to-be-perceived-as-important-and-impactful/)
- [How to manage a team towards high performance?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/O8vtGxsrwZebiSSlOlRd/how-to-manage-a-team-towards-high-performance/)
- [**\[Taro Top 10\] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -&gt; M Track)**](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/oz0mnJvHHgM8NfVF7rgp/)

Are Big Tech Incubation Labs Good Preparation For Being A Startup Founder?

Many companies will have a skunkworks or incubation division. Meta has **New Product Experimentation (NPE)**, Google has **Area 120**, and companies like Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, and others all have toy projects. 

Despite being branded as a “startup within a big company”, there are some important differences to keep in mind between these roles and real entrepreneurship: 
- Apps launched within larger companies have a huge unfair advantage in being able to leverage the parent company’s distribution channels. 
- There’s not as much urgency or risk in these divisions since, even if the app fails, the staff will just get reallocated to other parts of the company.
- Most of these projects eventually get killed by the parent company since they’re looking for multi-billion dollar market opportunities.

Connect with [Eric](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbahn/)

The 3 Core Performance Review System Archetypes

- 3 archetypes:
  - Ad-hoc spaghetti (small companies): No ratings, no recurring timeline, no formal process to get feedback
  - Manager determines all (traditional companies): Manager determines 90%+ of your rating. Used by most companies.
  - **360 feedback** (modern, mature companies): Get feedback from all directions.
- 360 feedback is the best system, and it's used by pretty much all the top companies like Meta and Google.

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.

Building Trust & Likeability

In this lesson, we discuss how **earning a senior promotion requires more than simply being ready for the next level—especially when multiple qualified people are competing for limited opportunities**. When candidates have comparable skills and performance, factors such as trust, relationships, and how others experience working with you can influence who receives the opportunity.

- **Build trust by showing up when things go wrong:** Senior leaders need people they can rely on without micromanaging. Handling crises, setbacks, and difficult situations effectively can demonstrate that you can be trusted when the stakes are high.

- **Relationships matter when qualifications are similar:** When two candidates are equally capable, leaders may gravitate toward the person they find easier and more enjoyable to work with, particularly when the promotion means spending considerably more time together.

- **Become someone people want in the room:** Your interpersonal presence can affect your progression at senior levels. Being helpful, constructive, and pleasant to work with can make others actively want your involvement in important conversations and opportunities.

Original podcast link:[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WaeGfLnRvc&t=24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WaeGfLnRvc&t=24s)

Influence vs. Manipulation

In this lesson, we discuss how **effective influence requires preparation, emotional intelligence, and an understanding of the other person’s motivations**. Like planning the opening moves in a chess game, difficult conversations can benefit from thinking ahead about what you want to ask, when to ask it, and how the other person is likely to respond. But influence is not simply about technique—the same interpersonal skills can be used collaboratively or manipulatively, making it equally important to understand the motives of the people you’re dealing with.

- **Prepare your opening moves and choose your timing:** Think through how you’ll introduce an important request and choose a moment when the other person is receptive, while looking for common ground as the conversation develops.
- **Emotional control makes influence more effective:** Anger and criticism can undermine your message even when your underlying point is correct. Staying calm and understanding how the other person feels can significantly improve difficult conversations.
- **Understand the motives behind interpersonal skill:** Influence, politics, and manipulation can rely on similar skills—the difference often lies in how they’re used. Learn to recognize whether someone’s interests align with yours, negotiate when cooperation is possible, and protect yourself when working with people you don’t fully trust.

Original podcast link:[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WaeGfLnRvc&t=24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WaeGfLnRvc&t=24s)

Management vs IC Transitions

In this lesson, Philip reflects on his experience moving between individual contributor (IC) and management roles throughout his career. He explains why he initially pursued management, why he ultimately prefers being an IC, and how he has managed to switch between the two tracks multiple times—even when doing so meant willingly stepping down in level.

- **Choose management because you want to lead—not simply because it feels like the next promotion.** Before becoming a manager, consider whether your team would genuinely want you to lead them and whether you would want to work for yourself.
- **Be careful of turning management into a one-way door.** Moving away from hands-on technical work can make returning to the IC track difficult, particularly if maintaining your title, level, or compensation becomes more important than making the right career move.
- **IC and management skills can converge at senior levels.** Senior ICs often need many of the same capabilities as strong leaders—including communication, vision, coaching, business understanding, and the ability to lead complex initiatives—although highly specialized technical roles may follow a different path.

Original podcast link: [**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2JxdjTi_1I**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2JxdjTi_1I)

Adam’s Advice to His Younger Self

In this final lesson, **Adam Ernst**, Software Engineer at **Meta**, reflects on his career journey and the advice he would give to aspiring engineers. Looking back, Adam believes he would not change the path he took because it aligned with his genuine interests and strengths. He emphasizes that long-term success comes from enjoying the work itself—especially the challenge of solving difficult problems—rather than chasing titles or following trends. By pursuing work that naturally fuels curiosity and motivation, engineers are more likely to sustain high performance and meaningful career growth.

- **Follow Work You Genuinely Enjoy:** Adam believes the best career decisions come from pursuing work that you find intrinsically rewarding. Passion creates the motivation needed to continually learn, improve, and produce high-quality work over the long term.
- **Love Solving Problems, Not Just Writing Code:** While not every task is enjoyable, Adam finds fulfillment in tackling challenging engineering problems. A genuine curiosity for problem-solving is what keeps difficult work engaging and ultimately leads to sustained success.
- **There's No Perfect Career Blueprint:** Rather than trying to optimize every career decision in hindsight, Adam's experience suggests that success comes from consistently following opportunities that align with your interests and strengths. When what you enjoy also meets the needs of the industry, you're in an ideal position to thrive.

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

IC9 Expectations

In this lesson, **Adam Ernst**, Software Engineer at **Meta**, shares how his mindset evolved after reaching the highest levels of the Individual Contributor career path. Rather than obsessing over whether his work was "IC9-level," Adam explains why he stopped measuring success by job expectations and instead focused on solving meaningful problems. He discusses the importance of trusting feedback from managers, staying aligned with organizational priorities, and pursuing work that is both impactful and personally motivating.

- **Stop Chasing the Title, Start Solving Problems:** Adam believes that constantly worrying about whether your work is "senior enough" is counterproductive. Instead, focus on delivering meaningful solutions to the most important problems facing your organization.
- **Use Feedback as a Course Correction:** Regular check-ins with your manager help ensure you're investing your time in high-impact work. Honest performance feedback should be viewed as guidance to adjust direction—not as a measure of personal worth.
- **Do Work You Enjoy:** Adam attributes much of his long-term success to working on problems he genuinely enjoys. By aligning personal interests with organizational priorities, engineers can produce their best work without becoming consumed by the pressure of meeting a particular career level.

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

Technical Depth vs Breadth

In this lesson, **Adam Ernst**, Software Engineer at **Meta**, shares his perspective on what it takes to reach the highest levels of the Individual Contributor (IC) career ladder. Rather than choosing between technical depth and breadth, Adam explains how he developed both by following curiosity and solving real engineering problems. He describes a practical approach to learning unfamiliar systems, collaborating effectively across teams, and continuously expanding his expertise through hands-on experience instead of formal study.

- **Develop Both Depth and Breadth:** Adam believes senior engineers benefit from deep expertise in their primary domain while gradually building knowledge across adjacent systems. This combination enables engineers to solve complex cross-functional problems and make a broader organizational impact.
- **Learn Through Real Problems:** Instead of studying technologies in isolation, Adam dives deeply into unfamiliar systems only when they become relevant to the problem at hand. Solving real engineering challenges creates meaningful learning opportunities and builds lasting expertise.
- **Become Self-Sufficient and Collaborative:** By investigating issues independently before asking for help, engineers not only reduce the burden on partner teams but also arrive with informed questions and potential solutions. This approach accelerates learning, builds credibility, and strengthens cross-team relationships.

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

Thoughts On Management

In this lesson, **Adam Ernst**, Software Engineer at **Meta**, explains why he chose to remain on the **Individual Contributor (IC)** career path instead of transitioning into engineering management. He discusses how understanding his strengths, interests, and motivations helped shape his career, why deep technical expertise can be more valuable than constantly switching domains, and how long-term specialization enabled him to become a trusted expert within Meta's mobile engineering organization.

- **Know What Motivates You:** Adam chose to remain an Individual Contributor because his greatest passion is writing code and solving technical problems. He recognized that management requires a different skill set—such as organizational leadership, direction setting, and people management—that did not align with his strengths or interests.
- **Build Deep Expertise Over Constant Change:** Rather than frequently changing teams or technologies, Adam stayed within mobile engineering, allowing him to develop deep institutional knowledge and become an expert in the architecture, tooling, and infrastructure that powered Meta's iOS ecosystem.
- **Career Paths Should Match Your Strengths:** Adam emphasizes that there is no universally "correct" career path. While some engineers thrive by exploring new domains such as AI or AR/VR, others create greater impact by mastering a specific area. The key is aligning your career choices with the type of work you genuinely enjoy and excel at.

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

Code Review is Undervalued

In this lesson, **Adam Ernst**, Software Engineer at **Meta**, explains why code reviews are one of the most powerful—and often overlooked—tools for influencing engineering culture. Drawing from his experience reviewing more than **1,600 code changes** in just 18 months, Adam shares his philosophy on giving constructive feedback, mentoring engineers through review comments, and creating lasting improvements across a codebase. He emphasizes that effective code reviews are not about enforcing preferences but about teaching, understanding context, and helping others grow.

- **Code Reviews Are a Leadership Tool:** Adam views code reviews as an opportunity to mentor engineers, share best practices, and influence technical decisions in a practical, one-on-one setting rather than through broad directives.
- **Explain the "Why," Not Just the "What":** Great review comments focus on the reasoning behind a suggestion instead of simply requesting changes. By explaining trade-offs and remaining open to missing context, reviewers encourage learning instead of compliance.
- **Create a Multiplier Effect:** Constructive feedback helps engineers improve not only their current code but also the way they review others' work. This creates a ripple effect where good engineering practices spread organically throughout the team.

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

How Should I Practice For These Interviews?

In this lesson we talk about how AI is making previously time-prohibitive advanced data structures and algorithms newly relevant in coding interviews, and what that means for how you should prepare.

- **AI unlocks harder concepts by handling the boilerplate** — complex structures like tries, heaps, and LRU caches were rarely testable in a 45–60 minute interview because implementation alone could eat up 15–20 minutes; with AI generating that scaffolding in seconds, interviewers can now reasonably include them, making them worth studying once you've solidified the fundamentals.
- **What you actually need to demonstrate has shifted** — since AI handles much of the implementation, your value lies in recognizing when a given data structure is the right tool, clearly articulating *why* it helps (e.g. "a trie eliminates the factor of M by checking all patterns simultaneously through shared prefix traversal"), and writing precise prompts that reflect that understanding.
- **Master the basics first, and don't over-rotate on this** — the vast majority of interviews (roughly 95%) will not require these advanced concepts, so treat this as the final 5–10% polish layer, not the foundation; verification of AI output remains just as critical here as everywhere else in the interview.

When Should I Actually Use AI During The Interview?

In this lesson we talk about when and how to use AI effectively during an AI-assisted coding interview.

- **Find the right balance with AI:** Learn how to avoid over-delegating core logic to AI or underusing it and running out of time, by aiming for the “middle path” that maximizes leverage while minimizing risk.
- **Accelerate typing, not thinking:** Discover why you should use AI for scaffolding, boilerplate, and clearly defined test cases—but retain ownership over algorithms, data structures, and key design decisions.
- **Optimize for easy verification:** Understand that AI is most helpful when you already know what needs to be built and can quickly verify the output, and least helpful when you’re still figuring out the correct approach.

How Am I Being Evaluated Now?

In this lesson we talk about how candidates are evaluated in AI-assisted coding interviews and how the scoring rubric has shifted.

- **Understand what still matters—and what matters more:** Learn how the core engineering method (problem exploration, solution design, implementation, and testing) remains the foundation, but with greater emphasis on deep problem exploration and structured thinking before coding.
- **Recognize why problem solving is now the primary signal:** Because AI handles much of the typing, interviewers focus more heavily on your ability to form a clear plan, choose the right algorithms and data structures, and articulate trade-offs.
- **Master delegation and verification with AI:** Discover how execution now means directing AI effectively—accelerating typing but not thinking—and how careful verification of AI-generated code is a major part of your evaluation.

Introducing The Active Users Problem

In this lesson we talk about a realistic example problem used throughout the course to simulate an AI-assisted coding interview.

- **Understand the problem context and deliverables:** Build the back-end logic for an active users metrics dashboard, including calculating daily unique active users and rolling 7-day active user counts from messy, real-world log data.
- **Work within a structured codebase:** Learn how to navigate starter code with helper functions (e.g., ID normalization, bot filtering) and focus on implementing two core functions while leveraging provided tests.
- **Set expectations for interview complexity:** Explore how AI-assisted interviews can range from simple LeetCode-style tasks to multi-file, production-like environments—and how this example reflects an average level of complexity.

The First Thing You Must Figure Out

Choosing the right company or team is hard because what’s “great” truly depends on our individual priorities.

Here are the core points from the lesson:

- We emphasize that people differ in life stage, location, responsibilities, and goals, which means there is no universal “best” company or team, only what is best for our personal priorities.
- We caution against blindly chasing FAANG or big tech, noting that while it can be optimal for some, it can be a poor match for others depending on what they value and need at this stage of their career.
- We outline the key first step: listing all potential priorities and stack-ranking them to create a clear, personalized hierarchy that guides the next career move.

The Basics

In this lesson, we outline how to structure manager 1:1s so they become one of the most powerful tools for growth, clarity, and alignment in the IC–EM relationship.

- We highlight that the gold standard for 1:1s is weekly, recurring, and 30 minutes long, which is long enough for meaningful depth but manageable on a manager’s packed calendar.
- We stress that cancellations should be rare because these meetings are the “lifeblood” of the relationship and the primary space where trust, alignment, and problem-solving happen.
- We recommend keeping a running meeting notes document with agendas, discussion points, and assigned action items to ensure continuity and accountability.
- We emphasize that although 1:1s take only \~1–2% of our weekly hours, they influence 30–70% of how quickly we grow and how effectively we leverage our EM.
- We reinforce that strong engineers prepare intentionally for these meetings—coming with notes, plans, and reflection—rather than waiting passively for their manager to drive the conversation.

Feedback Is A Gift. Seriously

In this lesson, we explore how feedback, especially how we *receive* it, is one of the most important levers for building trust with our engineering manager and accelerating our career growth.

- We highlight that managers are the primary (and often only) source of meaningful feedback, since peers rarely want the discomfort or risk of giving constructive criticism.
- We emphasize that when we first receive feedback, our job is to say **thank you**, avoid defensiveness, and take time to reflect—even if we disagree or feel misunderstood.
- We explain that most feedback contains at least a kernel of truth, and our responsibility is to identify what’s useful and implement changes quickly, then follow up later to show progress.
- We warn that pushing back defensively can permanently shut down future feedback, leaving us “rudderless” with no insight into what to improve.
- We share that the fastest-growing engineers treat feedback as a superpower: they assume good intent, absorb nuance, implement rapidly, and create a virtuous cycle where their manager is eager to invest even more in their growth.

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.