Having The Proper Mindset For Interviews

True or false: You need to care a lot about your Big Tech interview, because passing it will drastically improve your life. The more prominent it is in your brain, the more likely you are to pass.

True or false: Your input is much more important than the output and results you achieve.

Why should you not view interviews as a test?

True or false: You shouldn't take any breaks when studying for interviews, because the relentless focus will help you learn the material better.

- *The more you care about your interview, the less likely you are to pass it.*
- Interviews are all about maintaining a nimble, flexible state of mind, so you can react gracefully when hit with a problem you haven't prepared for. This will almost always happen on interviews with tougher companies.
- If you view your interview as a "make or break" opportunity (which it admittedly very well may be) and go into it with a lot of anxiety, you will not have that healthy state of mind. When your interviewer goes off-script, your mental state will likely shatter.
- View interviews as a chance for you to go in and learn from some very smart people, and if you happen to get a job offer, that's a nice bonus. This much more relaxed and positive mentality will reduce your anxiety.

Related resources:

- [\[Taro Top 10\] Finding A Tech Job](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/E6R0wVJ5EyCfVnVrlfno/)
- [\[Masterclass\] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - System Design](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/J3I9fTW9ulr6T9KjxpqY/masterclass-how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-system-design/)

How To Be An Effective Tech Lead [Part 2] - Why Most Tech Leads Suck

There are far more bad tech leads than good tech leads. But why is that? This lesson teaches you:

- How tech leads struggle when they have bad intentions
- How tech leads struggle when they have good intentions

Tech Lead Blueprint 1/17 - What's The Deal With Tech Leads?

Engineer A claims "*I am the Tech Lead for Engineer B*", while Engineer B claims "*I am the Tech Lead for Engineer A*" 🤔🤔

Lalit has seen several variants of this from his experience as a peer reviewer for Google engineers during performance reviews. Lalit discusses the common desire for the tech lead role, the lack of explicit definitions in tech companies, and the implicit nature of becoming a tech lead.

Connect with Lalit on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/lalitkundu/>

The #1 Rule Of Negotiation - How To Avoid Giving A Number

- Negotiation is a dance: Know your role within it and have a script.
- There's an asymmetry here:
  - Recruiters are talking to candidates and negotiating every day. They come in very prepared and have a script.
  - You will change jobs every 2-3 year - It's a rare event for you to have this conversation. To level the playing field, you should have a script too.
- If they ask for a number or range, say *"I'm more concerned with understanding if this opportunity is right for me."* This is polite while positioning yourself in a mutual respect scenario.
- If they refuse to move forward within a number, you can try:
  - "What are typical compensation bands for this role?"
  - "I'm a strong performer in my current role and expect to be promoted soon, so I'm not sure what's fair."
- If they require a number, put a placeholder and say you'll get back to it later
- Asking for a number is generally a predatory way for companies to take advantage of candidates and lowball them.
  - This is why in California, it is illegal for employers to ask your prior compensation information

Related resources:

- [\[Course\] The Insider's Guide To Negotiating Your Tech Salary And Compensation](https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-insiders-guide-to-negotiating-your-tech-salary-and-compensation/)
- ["Negotiation - done via phone call or email? Modes and stating a number?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/ggYVsodBllba5RmYrOtv/negotiation-done-via-phone-call-or-email-modes-and-stating-a-number/)

A Powerful Tool For Software Engineer Productivity - Focus Blocks

So many junior software engineers don't manage their calendar well, and this especially hurts their ability to write code and finish tickets efficiently. Don't blindly go into every meeting, especially as a junior software engineer who is often not relevant to the meeting. Be deliberate with your calendar and establish focus blocks.

Here are the core points from the video:

- **So what is a focus block?** - It's a long, uninterrupted period of time for you to focus on a singular track of work. A true focus block should be 4+ hours, ideally an entire work day.
- **Why are focus blocks important for coding?** - Humans are naturally bad at context switching, so focus blocks are just important for productivity in general. Having a focus block allows you to enter a "flow state" where you rate of work ramps up over time and you get more and more into the groove. When it comes to coding in particular, the focus time is crucial as context switching with code is especially painful. It takes a while to deep back into a codebase when you return to a coding task, and there's also practical reasons like rebasing your local and setting up your build environment again.
- **How can I set up a focus block?** - The main "culprit" behind hurting your focus blocks is meetings. Be aggressive about shaving meetings off your calendar where you aren't a core player, especially if you're earlier-in-career. Group the remaining meetings you have onto certain days with the goal of freeing up 1-2 days entirely for coding. 1 on 1 meetings will be the easiest to move. For the meetings you do end up going to, [follow this advice to really participate and get maximum value out of them](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3E3SBCa59z5oDb7AEciw/i-struggle-to-come-up-with-things-that-add-value-to-a-meeting-what-do-i-say/).

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] How To Manage Your Time Optimally In Tech And Achieve More Results](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/rnX9EKpzc43TgGW9MozG/masterclass-how-to-manage-your-time-optimally-in-tech-and-achieve-more-results/)
- ["How do I optimize my sacred hour at work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/l8dzUVTu99CahofQsYAi/how-do-i-optimize-my-sacred-hour-at-work/)

How To Properly Learn To Code As A Software Engineer - Do The Simple Thing First

Software engineers are obsessed with using the most modern framework in pursuit of the best code. Ironically, this dogma leads to them writing terrible code.

Here's the core points:

- **Do the simple thing first** - When picking up a stack, use the most basic framework. If possible, don't use a framework at all. By starting with the primitive setup, you will understand its limitations. This means that when you move up to modern frameworks and libraries, you will truly understand the problems they are trying to solve, allowing them to use them properly.
- **You can't "cheat" advanced code understanding** - You can't jump straight to the cutting-edge tech. These abstractions are powerful for a reason: They are naturally complex and require a deep understanding of the overall stack to use. When you try to "skip to the end", you will write bad code. The most terrible code comes from more junior software engineers trying to be smart prematurely with "modern architecture".

Related resources:

- [\[Course\] Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)
- [\[Course\] System Design Masterclass: Shipping Real Features To Production](https://www.jointaro.com/course/frontend-system-design-masterclass-building-playlists/)

Become An Open Source Master [Part 2] - How This Course Works

We'll explore the benefits of open source and how to contribute to existing projects in this course.

- Understand the benefits of open source and the mindset needed to work effectively in the open source ecosystem
- Learn how to get involved in someone else's project, understand their codebase, and make meaningful contributions
- Explore how contributing to open source can benefit your career by showcasing your skills and building your professional profile.
- This course won't cover how to create your own open source project or what it's like to work on one from within a company.

Connect with James: 

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

Grow From Senior To Staff Engineer [Part 2] - Why Is The Staff Promotion So Hard?

Countless senior engineers hit a wall as they push for staff. This lesson teaches you:

- How the Staff Engineer role in and of itself is special by being a relatively new career invention
- The easiest way to tell if a Senior Engineer isn't ready to become a Staff Engineer
- Why the Staff Engineer promotion is fundamentally different from prior promotions
- Why many teams can't support an additional Staff Engineer promotion
- How you can be performing as a Staff Engineer and still not get the promotion

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 1] - Course Outline

**In this course, we'll explore strategies, principles, and tactics to effectively convert the value you create into the rewards you deserve.**

- **Unleash Your Potential:** We'll address common pitfalls and biases that hinder career advancement, empowering you to overcome obstacles and achieve your goals.
- **Mindset Matters:** By shifting your mindset and adopting a positive, empowered perspective, you can accelerate your progress and achieve significant results.
- **Proven Strategies:** We'll delve into specific strategies and tactics that have been proven to be effective in maximizing your career potential.
- **Real-World Insights:** Through real-world examples and case studies, we'll illustrate how these principles can be applied to your specific career situation.

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 22] - Linked List Intro Lecture

In this lecture, Alvin explains the basic structure of a singly-linked list.

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/>

System Design Series: Taro Playlists [Part 3] - Defining The Requirements

You can [find the full system design doc here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15WaM8Ojan82g0m2mtz6kC2Hiyj0Q6VbjfqRmVNDI3qw/edit?usp=sharing) - Feel free to use it as a template for when you're designing systems at your job!

The concrete details are covered in the doc linked above, so this summary will focus on the "meta" context behind this part and additional commentary:

- It's very important for engineers to clearly understand the requirements of the product as they need to build them.
  - A common failure mode is that the proposed requirements aren't technically feasible. It's important for engineers to call this out as early as possible, which is why it's a valuable exercise for them to really lay out in the requirements in their system design doc and overall process.
  - Very senior product managers may give broad strokes in terms of what the product should do. Another reason why this exercise helps engineers is that it's actually up to them to convert the high-level points from their PM into very concrete features and requirements.
- "Jobs to be done" is a mental framework championed by Kevin Systrom, the co-founder and initial CEO of Instagram. The idea is that every product is "employed" by users to do a certain "job" in their life. This is a very important thing to understand about a product and clarifying this serves as an intermediary step towards creating concrete requirements.
- Something that's missing from this document are designs - This is because Taro has no dedicated design support at this stage. At a more mature company (which you almost certainly work at as the viewer), you would have designs at this stage in the document (it can be its own section). For front-end products, you need to put pixels on screen at the end of the day, so it's crucial for engineers to have designs to really understand the requirements and provide concrete feedback.

Effective Communication Guide [Part 3] - Building Relationships

In order to succeed as a software engineer, you need people to like you. So how do you make that happen quickly? This lesson teaches you:

- **Relationships are all about trust** - The more someone trusts you, the more they will share with you, and the more effective your collaboration can become. The 1 on 1 meeting is the most mechanism to earn this trust.
- **Trust by default** - Trust is extremely hard to earn and very easy to lose. The best way to earn someone's trust is to give them a lot of your trust. This will trigger a response where they will strive to follow The Golden Rule, giving you more of their trust to make things balanced. For an example of trusting by default and earning trust lightning fast, check out [our deep dive into great mentorship here](https://link.jointaro.com/YdUM4JP89Sjh7ruv5).
- **Make small talk** - 2-5 minutes of small talk per 1 on 1 can go a long way. By talking about things outside of work, you are showing that you truly care about them as a person.
- **Be honest** - Tell it to people straight, and don't mince words. By showing that you're comfortable sharing what you're genuinely thinking, people will want to do the same. This is especially powerful when talking about problems.
- **Use humor and self-deprecation** - Everyone likes to laugh: It's a very human thing to do. Crack a joke here and there when you can. Self-deprecation is effective as it's safe (you are poking fun at yourself instead of someone else) and shows your humility.
- **Show thanks** - Don't take your colleagues doing great work for granted: Doing great work is always hard. There is really no such thing as giving too much thanks and making people feel too appreciated. *This is a severely under-utilized technique*. Giving heartfelt thanks is supremely powerful - You can turn someone's bad day into a good one.

DSA Crash Course [Part 5] - Is Prime Walkthrough

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

Code along and test your work in the following editor workspace: <https://structy.net/problems/is-prime?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/>

Nail Your Promotion As A Software Engineer [Part 2] - You Can’t Job Hop To Success

A lot of software engineers give up way too easily when they're faced with substantial career resistance. You can't achieve that much genuine growth when you're constantly hopping around, and this reflects in both your level and compensation. This lesson teaches you:

- Why most engineers hit a wall when solely trying to job switch their way into higher levels, especially at senior and staff
- The defining trait of engineers who make it to incredibly senior engineering levels (Staff+)
- How to become a 10x engineer (i.e. Staff+ at a top company)
- Why it takes so long to truly settle into an organization and be able to demonstrate L6+ impact and behaviors

If you're interested in the 7 levels playlist, here it is: [Asking 7 Levels Of Engineers The Most Important Skill](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/TnJFvWcvpUvFWLFjpY7X/) (here's the [combined YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1pg5kI0VI4))

Check out this discussion about the costs of being [perceived of being a "job hopper."](Perception of being a \"job hopper\"?)

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 2] - Why A Strong Network Isn't Optional

No engineer is an island. And if they are, they're going to have a bad time. This lesson teaches you:

- How a strong network helps with job searching
- How a strong network helps with promotion and overall on-the-job performance
- How a strong network helps with general learning
- Why you need to start networking *now*, and how starting "early" actually makes the networking way easier

To better understand the difference between a strong referral vs. a weak referral: <https://www.jointaro.com/course/ace-your-tech-interview-and-get-a-job-as-a-software-engineer/referrals/>

[Masterclass] How To Do Amazing Code Review

Code review is one of the most effective ways to learn as a software engineer, especially for those earlier-in-career. Unfortunately, way too many engineering teams get it wrong with slow review speed and low quality comments.

There is a mountain of information in this presentation, so here's our 5 favorite points (in no particular order):
- **Code review is NOT for catching bugs** - Of course, if you find a bug in a PR (pull request), you should call it out, but that's not the primary purpose of code review. The core benefit of code review is to build up engineering culture, propagating best practices amongst the team and growing newer and more junior engineers.
- **Add deep context to your PRs** - Explain what your pull request does and the reasoning behind your approach. Also, *include a test plan.* A test plan is a demo showcasing what your code changes do; try to make it a video/gif, which is especially powerful if you work on front-end (Android/iOS/web). If you can't do a video, try attaching a screenshot or a set of commands to run tests.
- **One diff, one thesis** - Every PR should be focused and atomic: Don't jam the entire new feature you just coded up in a single 1,000+ line PR. Huge commits are hard to review, and your teammates will hate you for it. For the vast majority of cases, you can break down your PRs to 25-250 lines of code.
- **Read others' code reviews** - Similar to so many other things in tech, stand on the shoulders of giants where you can. With code review, this means looking at how senior+ engineers on your team comment on reviews. Try to find patterns in the issues they're finding and incorporate it into how you review code. Revisions that have been rejected with changes requested are a gold mine for this learning.
- **Code review MUST be fast** - When we say fast, we mean that feedback should arrive in <24 hours. What a lot of engineers don't realize is that code review delay is multiplicative: Sometimes commit will need 3-5 revisions before they're able to be merged. If turnaround is 2+ days, this can easily lead to commits taking weeks to land, which is far too slow.

A lot of the terminology in this video is Meta specific. If you're more used to GitHub:
- Diff review = Pull request
- Diff = Commit

Related resources:
- ["How to give better code reviews without full business context?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/vio35mw1SYWM8AYojB2w/how-to-give-better-code-reviews-without-full-business-context/)
- ["How to review code in another language/ from another team?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/B79W3aWc8xMB8cCULFdJ/how-to-review-code-in-another-language-from-another-team/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1koyIR9K_CtESD7Vnh3GQOE-svFW-ngrQeEAduSAoH0w/edit)

An Autistic Journey To Google Staff Engineer [L6] From Software Analyst - By Lee McKeeman

[Lee McKeeman](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmckeeman/) is an autistic software engineer with quite an incredible journey: Across a whopping ~20 years of experience, Lee has worked at Amazon (where he was an engineering manager and bar raiser), Meta, and now Google.

Lee's career story is super long (watch the video to get the full picture), so instead, we're sharing some of the great learnings from Lee here:
- **School doesn't actually teach you software** - University is generally rooted in theory and overly abstract exercises, leaving you with a very basic raw coding foundation. While that certainly has value, it's not enough to make you capable of doing actual software engineering, especially in a team environment.
- **Debugging is a critical skill** - Lee started off as a software analyst, which was a role that was much more focused on diving deep and fixing issues as opposed to churning out new features. The experience Lee got here was extremely valuable and continued paying dividends across his career, even after he transitioned to SWE.
- **Help others and keep an open mind** - Everyone works in different ways and will be comfortable/uncomfortable in situations that don't match that of others. This includes the neurodivergent population like autistic people, those with ADHD, and more. Be a true teammate by being understanding and accepting of these differences. Assume good intent, and if you aren't sure how you can best support a teammate, just ask them!

To learn more from Lee, you should 100% connect with him on LinkedIn where he writes some of the best posts (and comments) on the entire platform: [Lee's LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmckeeman/)

Here's some of the incredible wisdom Lee has shared on Taro:
- ["What does it mean to not require handholding anymore?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/5vEWajcZlSi7nlohTGtJ/what-does-it-mean-to-not-require-handholding-anymore/)
- ["How to Balance Responsibilities: Prioritizing Personal Work vs. 'Glue Work' in a New Team Environment."](https://www.jointaro.com/question/9NL4LP40xHy5sgGMvsmB/how-to-balance-responsibilities-prioritizing-personal-work-vs-glue-work-in-a-new-team-environment/)
- ["Can someone elaborate on "always treating feedback as a gift"?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/4DoEnMIq2ISadfAJuwp9/can-someone-elaborate-on-always-treating-feedback-as-a-gift/)
- ["What do career levels structure in big tech company look like? What are the responsibilities for each level?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/qV5oikdcgs4GWmGeousX/what-do-career-levels-structure-in-big-tech-company-look-like-what-are-the-responsibilities-for-each-level/)

Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer [Part 5] - Fake "Clean Code" Shortcuts

A lot of software engineers want shortcuts: They want to find the optimal tech stack, programming language, and framework to slot into their code so it's automatically the best and they have conquered code quality. Unfortunately, that's just not how code quality works. This lesson will teach you:

- Why having truly good code quality is so, so hard and more about building up fundamental technical skills
- How to have a proper senior engineer mentality around "clean code" and how to extend a codebase
- Common fake "clean code" shortcuts that engineers desperately want to believe but ultimately aren't true (often stemming from obsession with FAANG and Big Tech)

1 on 1s Are The Time To Be Awkward

Why should you be awkward and even a little bit uncomfortable in 1 on 1 meetings?

True or false: 1 on 1 meetings are great for staying in sync, so status updates are one of the best things you can talk about during them.

Which of the following are good things to talk about in 1 on 1 meetings?

The 1 on 1 meeting is one of the most important usages of time in the workplace. Even the most junior engineer will generally have at least a 1 on 1 meeting series with their engineering manager. However, 1 on 1 meetings are often completely wasted by software engineers - Here's how to avoid that.

Here are the core points from the video:

- 1 on 1 meetings are the most inefficient way to communicate anything that is non-controversial
  - The main culprit here is detailed status updates. If you're using the majority of the time to share these and talk tactics, you are doing 1:1s wrong.
- The most effective way to leverage 1:1s is to talk about things that are *awkward and maybe even make you uncomfortable*. Here are some examples of "awkward" topics:
  - Feedback to improve
  - Emotions (both positive and negative)

Related resources:

- [\[Course\] Effective Communication For Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/effective-communication-for-engineers/)
- [The Art of the Awkward 1:1](https://medium.com/@mrabkin/the-art-of-the-awkward-1-1-f4e1dcbd1c5c)

[Masterclass] How To Manage Your Time Optimally In Tech And Achieve More Results

Ever wondered what separates software engineers at FAANG and top startups from the rest? One of the big reasons is their ability to manage their time well to supercharge their productivity. At the end of the day, how hard you work and how naturally talented you may be aren't relevant if you aren't able to use your time efficiently.

Here are our Top 5 points from this masterclass (in no particular order):
- **Focus on just 1 thing** - Have a goal for every single work day. Make it more concrete by writing it down. Humans are naturally bad at multi-tasking; narrowing everything on your plate to a single task brings clarity which leads to action.
- **Break things down** - By decomposing big projects into smaller and smaller sub-tasks, you are making it more digestible and actionable. This is an especially important skill for more senior engineers and tech leads as they will need to take in huge problems and split them up into smaller chunks to delegate to others. How good a software engineer is at this is a key attribute of their seniority.
- **Move your phone out of arm's reach** - Modern-day smart phones are great, but they are also super-effective distraction machines. Relying on raw self-will to resist checking your phone every 5 minutes is overrated and often ineffective. Introduce that extra friction.
- **Find an accountability partner** - Humans are a social species, so we naturally don't want to let others down. Peer pressure is some of the most effective pressure there is and finding someone who you care about and is counting on you is often more powerful than any collection of time management tactics (including the ones in this masterclass).
- **Get consistent sleep and exercise** - Software engineers in particular will claim that they "don't have enough time" to do these. Sacrificing sleep and exercise is the classic mistake of getting a short-term gain with huge sacrifices in long-term value. These 2 things are activities you *make* time for. Get ~8 hours of sleep each day and do ~30 minutes of exercise 3-5 times a week. After a few weeks/month, you will see a huge boost in your energy and mental clarity from doing these.

Related resources:
- [Strategies To Stop Procrastination](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/90PJpQEWVdVK47yh6IiB/strategies-to-stop-procrastination/)
- ["How do I optimize my sacred hour at work?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/l8dzUVTu99CahofQsYAi/how-do-i-optimize-my-sacred-hour-at-work/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MCEx7X592VfvdWlFi4JrhSffiDIeNyc1FsqDJMy8hvI/edit?usp=sharing)

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.