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 7] - KISS

Engineers naturally gravitate towards complexity, and it shows in how they communicate and design things. This is a problem when it comes to side projects. This lesson teaches you:

- The beautiful, often under-appreciated value of simplicity
- Assumptions you shouldn't make about the end-user
- What it means to KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid), 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).

15 SWE Years In 1.5 Hours [Part 12] - System Design

System design is a crucial interview round, because it's both technical and actually needed on the job (unlike data structures and algorithms). This lesson teaches you:

- What a system design interview is looking for
- What not to do in a system design round
- How to learn system design organically

To dive deeper into system design interviews, take our course here: [How To Crack System Design Interviews As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/how-to-crack-system-design-interviews-as-a-software-developer/)

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 16] - Spend Time On Your Career

**In this section, we explored the importance of maintaining an empowering state to sustain long-term success.**

To cultivate an empowering state, we should:

- **Prioritize long-term goals:** Focus on building a sustainable career and avoiding short-term sacrifices that may hinder long-term growth.
- **Cultivate a growth mindset:** Embrace challenges as opportunities for learning and development.
- **Practice self-care:** Prioritize physical and mental health to maintain energy and focus.
- **Build strong relationships:** Foster meaningful connections with others to provide support and inspiration.
- **Maintain a positive mindset:** Cultivate a positive outlook and practice gratitude to reduce stress and anxiety.

By adopting these strategies, we can increase our resilience, motivation, and overall well-being, enabling us to achieve long-term success.

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>.

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 15] - Use Synchronous Time Wisely

**In this section, we explored strategies for optimizing our synchronous time and effectively communicating our work and desires.**

To make the most of our time and build strong professional relationships, we should:

- **Prioritize synchronous time:** Focus on activities that require real-time collaboration and cannot be effectively accomplished asynchronously.
- **Minimize unnecessary meetings:** Reduce the number of meetings and their duration to maximize productivity.
- **Communicate proactively:** Share updates and seek feedback regularly, both synchronously and asynchronously.
- **Build strong relationships:** Cultivate positive relationships with colleagues and managers through open and honest communication.
- **Be mindful of our communication style:** Adapt our communication style to different audiences and situations to ensure effective message delivery.

By implementing these strategies, we can improve our efficiency, effectiveness, and overall job satisfaction.

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>.

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 12] - Align With Intermediate Picture

**In this video, we discussed the importance of aligning our work with the broader organizational goals.**

To effectively align our efforts, we should:

- **Build relationships with key stakeholders:** Connect with managers, peers, and executives to gain insights into the company's strategic direction.
- **Understand the big picture:** Develop a comprehensive understanding of the organization's goals, challenges, and opportunities.
- **Communicate effectively:** Clearly articulate the impact of our work on the overall business objectives.
- **Embrace a collaborative mindset:** Work closely with others to achieve shared goals and leverage collective expertise.
- **Be proactive:** Take initiative in identifying opportunities to contribute to the organization's success.

By aligning our work with the broader organizational goals, we can increase our visibility, influence, and career opportunities.

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>.

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 11] - Add Incredible Value

**In this section, we explored the concept of adding incredible value to our work.**

To truly make a significant impact, we should:

- **Go the extra mile:** Strive for excellence and push beyond the minimum requirements.
- **Prioritize finishing tasks:** Complete projects thoroughly, including documentation and testing.
- **Seek continuous feedback:** Actively solicit input from colleagues and managers to improve our work.
- **Balance work and rest:** Maintain a sustainable pace by incorporating regular breaks and time off.
- **Focus on long-term impact:** Adopt a long-term perspective and prioritize tasks that contribute to strategic goals.

By consistently striving to add incredible value, we can become indispensable assets to our teams and organizations.

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>.

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 10] - Clarity On Deliverables

**In this video, we discussed the importance of clarity in defining and achieving our work goals.**

To ensure we're consistently making progress and maximizing our impact, we should:

- **Continuously seek clarity:** Regularly revisit and refine our goals and deliverables, especially in dynamic work environments.
- **Balance long-term and short-term priorities:** Prioritize tasks that align with long-term objectives while also addressing urgent issues.
- **Take ownership of our work:** Proactively seek clarity from our managers and take initiative in defining our own expectations and deliverables.
- **Utilize effective time management techniques:** Allocate specific time for focused work and unexpected tasks to maintain productivity and avoid feeling overwhelmed.

By following these guidelines, we can increase our effectiveness, reduce stress, and achieve greater success in our professional endeavors.

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>.

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 9] - Getting Stuff Done

We've discussed the importance of increasing your Luck Surface Area (LSA) to maximize the rewards for your efforts. To do this, we must focus on two key components:

- **Do impactful work:** Prioritize tasks that significantly contribute to your goals and the overall success of your team.
- **Communicate effectively:** Clearly articulate your work, its impact, and your aspirations to relevant stakeholders. This includes both celebrating successes and openly discussing challenges.

Remember, effective communication is crucial. Avoid the pitfalls of assuming your work speaks for itself or only sharing successes. Be proactive in seeking alignment with your manager and team, and don't shy away from difficult conversations.

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>.

Get The Rating You Deserve [Part 7] - Build Relationships Proactively

**In this section, we'll explore the importance of building and nurturing relationships in your career.**

- **Proactive Relationship Building:** We emphasize the importance of building relationships before you need them, focusing on giving value and aligning goals.
- **Mindful Communication:** We discuss the power of effective communication, including active listening, empathy, and clear expression of needs and desires.
- **Leveraging Power for Good:** We explore how to use power to create positive change and foster strong relationships, rather than for personal gain.
- **Overcoming Pitfalls:** We identify common pitfalls in relationship building, such as impatience and a short-term focus, and provide strategies to avoid them.
- **Practical Tips:** We offer actionable advice, such as dedicating time to relationship building, seeking out opportunities to help others, and practicing empathy and understanding.

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>.

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.