The CLEAR Framework

In this part of the course, we learn how to speak about machine learning concepts in a way that’s clear, confident, and impactful. The instructor introduces a practical, repeatable framework—CLEAR—that helps us explain any concept with structure and depth.

- **C is for Conceptualize**: Start with a high-level, simple definition of the concept (e.g., logistic regression predicts binary outcomes).
- **L is for Link**: Connect the concept to related ideas or typical use cases, showing broader understanding.
- **E is for Example**: Provide a real-world application to ground the concept in practice.
- **A is for Advantages and Disadvantages**: Discuss trade-offs to demonstrate critical thinking.
- **R is for Result**: Explain how success is measured using appropriate evaluation metrics.

By using the CLEAR framework, we present ourselves as organized, knowledgeable, and experienced—even when discussing foundational topics.

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/>

Course Roadmap

In this part of the course, we’re given a roadmap that outlines the full journey of preparing for machine learning interviews. Each section is designed to build our skills systematically and strategically, based on real-world experience and mentorship insights.

- We start with **essential ML concepts**, learning how to clearly explain high-frequency topics that appear in nearly every interview.
- We then move into **practical ML coding and modeling**, covering notebooks, EDA, model selection, feature engineering, and evaluation techniques.
- **Coding foundations** are reinforced to help us succeed in general algorithm rounds, with a focus on what companies expect from ML candidates.
- We’ll tackle **ML algorithm coding**, where we may be asked to implement algorithms like decision trees or k-means from scratch.
- **ML system design** is emphasized for senior-level roles, with frameworks and examples for building scalable systems.
- Finally, we prepare for **project deep dives and behavioral interviews**, learning how to share impactful stories, followed by crafting a personalized **study plan** that fits our timeline and goals.

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/>

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).

You listened. But not to what mattered.

It’s possible to replay the entire meeting in your head and still miss the thing they needed you to hear.

This isn’t about listening better.\
It’s about listening for something else entirely.

**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).

They’re not resisting change. They’re protecting something.

It’s easy to think they’re pushing back just to be difficult.\
But more often, they’re trying to keep something from breaking.

This section slows the moment down.\
Just enough to ask: what might they lose if they say yes?

**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).

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 23] - Conclusion

Congratulations on making it to the end of this course! Here are core points from the lesson:

- Know the details of your equity, 401k, and ESPP plans, and set calendar reminders for things like stock option expirations, enrollment windows, and rollover opportunities
- Automate what you can only after understanding your holdings—review RSU tax withholdings, grant docs, and whether you’re using pre-tax vs. Roth intentionally
- Explore advanced options like mega backdoor Roths if your 401k allows them, and ensure you're not missing out on your employer match or other benefits
- Review your health plan and associated perks like HSAs, FSAs, and wellness stipends, and use reminders to avoid letting free money go to waste

If you want to get additional support from Andy:

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Receive other bonuses, leave feedback, and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 3] - Foundational Tax Concepts

Understanding how taxes work is key to making smart decisions about equity compensation—here are the core points from the lesson:

- Gross income is reduced by payroll taxes and deductions to determine adjusted gross income (AGI) and taxable income, which drives your federal tax liability
- Long-term capital gains (assets held over a year) receive lower federal tax rates than ordinary income, often saving high earners significant amounts
- State tax treatment varies—most states don’t offer preferential rates for long-term gains, and some, like Massachusetts, penalize short-term gains more heavily
- Investment losses can offset gains and up to $3,000 of ordinary income per year, but “wash sale” rules can disallow losses if you repurchase too soon
- The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) may kick in if you're using lots of deductions or exercising incentive stock options, so it’s important to model this in advance

Next steps with Andy:

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 10] - "Good To Know" People

You never know who's going to come in and completely change your career for the better. This lesson teaches you:

- What "good to know" connections are
- Why networking with these connections can actually be quite easy
- The most powerful way to identify "good to know" connections

Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech [Part 9] - Tactical Stakeholders

To succeed at work, you need to have the right people trust you. This lesson teaches you:

- What tactical stakeholders are and why they're crucial for your network
- How tactical stakeholder relationships become more and more important as you become more senior
- Who your tactical stakeholders are and how they change as you level up as an engineer

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 13] - Code Review

As an intern, your ability to navigate code reviews can significantly impact your chances of getting a return offer. It’s not just about code correctness — how you engage with feedback and your team matters just as much. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Code reviews are mandatory for shipping code and are a key mechanism for maintaining quality, sharing knowledge, and passing on team culture
- Interns often struggle with code review because it’s rarely taught; expect lots of feedback early on, and aim to show progress by reducing repeated comments over time
- Your *dynamic* — how open, curious, and quick you are in responding to feedback — is often more important than just the *substance* of your code
- Always respond quickly to feedback, ideally within an hour, and never land a PR with unresolved comments unless clearly communicated and agreed upon
- For large or confusing feedback, escalate to a synchronous conversation (e.g., a call) instead of dragging it out over multiple asynchronous review rounds

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 12] - Code Quality

Writing a lot of code isn’t enough to secure a return offer — it also needs to meet your team’s quality standards. Clean, thoughtful code makes it easier for others to review, trust, and approve your changes. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Poor quality code, even if it’s high in volume, will cost you a return offer
- High-quality code means making your changes easy to review by including a clear commit message, test plan, and relevant context
- Interns often overlook non-code details like documenting edge cases and adding screenshots or videos to demonstrate what changed
- Good code quality is about reducing friction for your reviewers — make their job easier and they’ll be more likely to trust and support you

Take the code quality course here to instantly boost your return offer chances by +50%: [Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 9] - Build In Public

It’s not enough to quietly ship code during your internship—sharing your progress publicly is a key strategy for visibility and success. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- By default, no one except your mentor may know what you’re working on, so it’s your job to build in public and generate awareness
- Visibility leads to stronger relationships, more feedback, and more people who can advocate for you when return offer decisions are made
- Intern projects often aren’t on the critical path, making it even more important to market your work through demos, updates, and conversations
- Reusing assets like screenshots or videos from your pull requests is a great way to showcase progress
- Use team standups, Slack channels, emails, and meetings to share what you’ve built and invite feedback, always including links and tagging collaborators to maximize engagement

SWE Internship Survival Guide [Part 6] - Onboard Efficiently

Onboarding efficiently is one of the most critical phases of your internship. Here are the core points from this lesson:

- Embrace being new—ask questions early and often, seek feedback, and don’t waste time being stuck on problems for longer than an hour
- Prioritize setting up your environment and making small code changes early to learn workflows and gain confidence
- Build relationships immediately: meet with your intern manager and schedule one-on-ones with at least two other teammates for broader support and perspective
- The sooner you engage and request help, the more value you’ll get from the relationship—and the less it will feel awkward or overdue later in the internship

Take the full onboarding course here: [The Complete Onboarding Guide For Software Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-complete-onboarding-guide-for-software-engineers-succeeding-when-youre-new/)

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 16] - Word Of Mouth

The most organic source of traffic is happy users simply telling their network how awesome your product is. This lesson teaches you:

- The main metric to understand when it comes to your word of mouth
- 2 product mechanisms you can add to juice up your word of mouth
- How to make an effective sharing flow, explained with an in-depth example
- How to make a compelling referral flow, shown with famous examples

Airbnb blog post about how they sharply refined their sharing flow (an oldie but a goodie): <https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/growth-at-scale-getting-to-product-sharing-fit-ccb4b501ecf>

Ship & Grow 500k+ User Side Projects [Part 6] - Least Clicks Design

You don't need to be a product design to build great software with a smooth user interface. This lesson teaches you:

- Why *every* engineer needs to care about UX, not just front-end engineers (web/mobile)
- The core philosophy you need to remember when crafting user interfaces
- The difference between a good product and a bad product when it comes to least clicks design
- What it looks like to truly champion least clicks design, explained with an in-depth example

Part 7 [RBP] Use Fragments Instead Of Divs

This lesson focuses on using React Fragments to improve the structure and styling of your components when rendering multiple elements.

- **The Problem with Divs:** Learn how wrapping elements in unnecessary divs for rendering can lead to cluttered DOM structures and styling issues.
- **Introducing Fragments:** Discover how to use Fragments (empty tags `<> </>`) to group elements without adding extra nodes to the DOM, resulting in cleaner and more efficient code.
- **Benefits of Fragments:** Understand how Fragments help maintain proper styling, improve code readability, and optimize your application's performance by reducing unnecessary DOM elements.

Links:

- Florian’s free web development playlist on YouTube: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrnPJCHvNZuDG6BWjUFVxeWyYlve_SVJO>
- Code link: <https://github.com/codinginflow/react-best-practices/blob/fragments/src/app/page.tsx>

Part 4 [RBP] Clean Up Your Fetch Requests

This lesson focuses on preventing race conditions that can occur when making multiple fetch calls in React components, leading to inconsistent UI behavior and a poor user experience.

- **Identifying Race Conditions:** Understand how race conditions happen when asynchronous fetch requests resolve in an unexpected order, particularly with slow or unreliable network connections.
- **Strategies for Avoiding Race Conditions:** Learn how to use tools like SWR or React Query to manage fetch requests and automatically handle race conditions, or implement manual cleanup logic with an "ignore" flag to discard outdated responses.
- **Improving Code Structure:** Discover how to keep your fetch-related code organized and maintainable, especially when dealing with loading and error states, setting the stage for cleaner solutions covered in the next lesson.

Links:

- Florian’s free web development playlist on YouTube: <https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrnPJCHvNZuDG6BWjUFVxeWyYlve_SVJO>
- Code link: <https://github.com/codinginflow/react-best-practices/blob/fetch-cleanup/src/app/page.tsx>

Amazon Behavioral Interview [Part 28] - Recovering From A Bad Decision (Evaluation)

This video segment provides feedback on an individual's response to a behavioral interview question about a time they made a bad decision.

- **Strengths:**

  - **Owned the Mistake:** The interviewee openly acknowledged the mistake and took responsibility for the negative consequences.
  - **Demonstrated Self-Awareness:** They identified the root cause of the mistake – focusing solely on short-term revenue gains while neglecting long-term customer value and potential.
  - **Highlighted Corrective Actions:** The interviewee described the steps taken to rectify the situation, such as revising the incentive structure, improving call center response times, and implementing measures to address long wait times.
  - **Learned from the Experience:** The interviewee outlined the key learnings from this experience, including the importance of considering long-term customer value and gathering input from stakeholders before implementing significant changes.

- **Areas for Improvement:**

  - **Quantify Impact:** The interviewee could have further quantified the impact of the mistake and the subsequent corrective actions. For example, they could have provided specific data on the improvement in customer satisfaction scores or the increase in customer retention rates after implementing the changes.
  - **Emphasize Positive Outcomes:** The interviewee could have further emphasized the positive outcomes of the project, such as the improved focus on customer lifetime value and the development of a more robust customer retention strategy.
  - **Connect to Amazon Leadership Principles:** The interviewee could have explicitly connected their actions and learnings to relevant Amazon Leadership Principles, such as "Customer Obsession," "Learn and Be Curious," and "Ownership."

- **Overall:**

  - The interviewee effectively demonstrated their ability to acknowledge and learn from mistakes, take responsibility for their actions, and implement corrective measures.
  - By incorporating the suggested improvements, the interviewee can further enhance their response and increase their chances of success in the interview.

Learn more about Alan's job search program, Kadima Careers, using this [discount link](https://signup.kadimacareers.com/mQBsDvu).

Amazon Behavioral Interview [Part 4] - Tell Me About Yourself (Discussion)

This video segment discusses strategies for individuals who may not have the same level of prestigious work experience as those who have worked at Google, Facebook, or Salesforce.

- **Focus on Impact:** Instead of solely focusing on the names of companies, emphasize the impact you made in your previous roles. Quantify your achievements whenever possible (e.g., "increased revenue by 1400%").
- **Keep it Concise:** The "Tell me about yourself" section should be brief and impactful. Aim for a concise summary (around 3 minutes) to maintain the interviewer's attention.
- **Avoid Excessive Detail:** Steer clear of irrelevant details, such as personal anecdotes that are not directly related to your professional experience.
- **Prepare Thoughtful Questions:** Demonstrate your engagement and interest by preparing insightful questions to ask the interviewer.

By focusing on these points, individuals can effectively present their skills and experience, even without a background at major tech companies.

Learn more about Alan's job search program, Kadima Careers, using this [discount link](https://signup.kadimacareers.com/mQBsDvu).

Amazon Behavioral Interview [Part 3] - Tell Me About Yourself (Feedback)

This video provides feedback on an individual's "Tell me about yourself" response in a job interview.

- **Strengths:**

  - The speaker effectively used a quick joke and the "Moneyball" analogy to create a memorable and engaging introduction.
  - They highlighted their focus on customer-centric work, aligning with Amazon's values.
  - The speaker skillfully leveraged their experience at prestigious companies like Google, Facebook, and Salesforce to demonstrate their value and expertise.
  - They effectively communicated their entrepreneurial venture, Kadima, as a side gig without appearing overly self-promotional.

- **Alternative Approach:**

  - The feedback suggests an alternative approach: starting with their current situation and then explaining their career journey leading up to that point.

This feedback offers valuable insights into crafting a compelling and impactful "Tell me about yourself" response for job interviews.

Learn more about Alan's job search program, Kadima Careers, using this [discount link](https://signup.kadimacareers.com/mQBsDvu).

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.