[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)

[Masterclass] Understanding And Optimizing Your Pay In Tech

Related resources:
- ["If my main goal is compensation, would it be wise to learn blockchain tech since it will potentially be the tech of the next couple decades?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/tyS6MzzADqBzt10802Mh/if-my-main-goal-is-compensation-would-it-be-wise-to-learn-blockchain-tech-since-it-will-potentially-be-the-tech-of-the-next-couple-decades/)
- ["How do people in Big Tech deal with constantly fluctuating Stock Prices from their company?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/JhEDkJl8AexlsL4IXBOH/how-do-people-in-big-tech-deal-with-constantly-fluctuating-stock-prices-from-their-company/)
- [[Taro Top 10] Pay Negotiation](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/uyWSc5q79zFw2Ei7w59d/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1MdJrfT-wBDI6p-3z2_4rNY8IJwlvj1X7n3E5bmYajFU/edit?usp=sharing)

[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)

[Masterclass] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager

Related resources:
- [Voicing Your Problems And Frustrations Productively](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/elIKuK5Ody0xzVNmdnsR/voicing-your-problems-and-frustrations-productively/)
- ["My manager and I don't see eye-to-eye. How can I improve this relationship?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/WWuU0HRpNu90J638iJPs/my-manager-and-i-dont-see-eye-to-eye-how-can-i-improve-this-relationship/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Hk6oEtLAKBKI3jF5SvB7bPGZHZMoxx79VJIoA3N3Bk4/edit?usp=sharing)

[Masterclass] How To Have Impactful 1 on 1 Meetings

Related resources:
- [[Taro Top 10] Communicating Effectively As An Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/yJ6oybePeu93sDSZ1GiQ/)
- [How To Effectively Leverage Skip Level 1:1s](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/TToehFEc738PBhJcALwL/how-to-effectively-leverage-skip-level-11s/)
- ["Coffee Chat Questions With a Tech Lead - What to ask?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/jGNZthqhvzYPiMckPEl1/coffee-chat-questions-with-a-tech-lead-what-to-ask/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1O1bUrK1NgyfYoMkIqCFJ0SvXv-IQlPhP1gYzBp95abU/edit?usp=sharing)

How To Decide To Leave A Company: Generalist to Specialist shift

Philip spent many years at Microsoft, followed by many years at Facebook (Meta). What led him to finally decide to leave each company? 

More to explore: 
- Our masterclass on [How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/tyaPFMXPoz2pmzB7OVzt/how-to-build-deep-relationships-quickly-in-tech-12172022/)
- Connect with [Philip Su](https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/)
- [Why Slack Sucks for Team Communication](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/yurIkW9cyU9lkG3FjYnU/what-gets-communicated-gets-done-why-slack-sucks/)

Philip's Biggest Concern: The Future Of Work

Why IN PERSON Meetings Are Important for Building Culture


  How can you build relationships and team culture in a hybrid or remote team? 

Unfortunately, the physical connection you get from being in an office is much harder to emulate online. If you are in a remote environment, having some sort of in-person meetup can create a substantially healthier and bonded team.

Philip also talks about how to best evaluate a company culture: talking to senior individual contributors (ICs). Managers may provide less value since they have something to sell.

More to explore: 
- Our masterclass on [How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech](https://link.jointaro.com/MvHfGDSzxwboGqBB8)
- [Why Slack Sucks for Team Communication](https://link.jointaro.com/JmHCagUPAFPSCtt99)
- Connect with [Philip Su](https://www.linkedin.com/in/suphilip/) 

Can A Company Demand High Performance AND Allow Learning?

What Gets Communicated Gets Done: Why Slack Sucks

Why He Built (And Shut Down) A Meta Internal Tool for Pseudonymous Communication

He Bought Coffee For ALL Meta Employees On His Last Day

[Masterclass] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - System Design

System design is a crucial software engineer interview skill, especially for FAANG and Big Tech in general. It is effectively a requirement to be leveled at a senior software engineer or higher and will show up in mid-level engineer interviews as well (with the occasional appearance in even junior engineer interviews). The cool thing about system design (unlike data structures and algorithms) is that it's something you actually need to do on the job.

Here are our Top 5 points from the session (in no particular order):
- **Leverage engineering blogs of top companies** - And if you're applying to one of these companies, definitely read their blog. This will help you understand their high-level design and gives you a real-world example to anchor off of, as opposed to something more abstract and high-level that you would get from a traditional book.
- **Do NOT write code** - System design is a *high-level* exercise meant to gauge seniority. Writing raw code is the mark of a more junior software engineer, which is why you should never be writing code in a system design interview. Instead, draw boxes with arrows where the boxes represent components and the arrows represent how they interact.
- **There is no right answer** - One of the main reasons software is hard is because of how open it is. For any complex technical problem, there will be several good solutions, each with varying tradeoffs. System design is not like school or DSA where there is a singular right answer.
- **Understand the problem requirements** - System design problems are, by design, very open-ended. For example, if you get "Build the Twitter feed", there are so many features that make it up: There is no way you can design the entire thing in 1 interview round. Work with your interviewer to understand the scope of the problem and which parts should be prioritized.
- **Follow mature software principles** - The 5 covered in this presentation are robustness, scalability, performance, extensibility, and resiliency. Don't just get the happy flow working - Think about how your system will react when edge cases are hit and things go wrong.

Related resources:
- [How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview [Data Structures & Algorithms]](https://link.jointaro.com/iTNxPCvkdGite4wT9)
- [System Design Series: Taro Playlists [Part 1] - What REAL System Design Looks Like](https://link.jointaro.com/4obaFizTZAdAcStY6)
- [Presentation slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1z4yX5LiiSxbHiNrBOTPIiDfhBL5qmwRUrDojT71OROY/edit)

[Masterclass] How To Ace Your Big Tech Interview - Data Structures And Algorithms

Data structures and algorithms (often abbreviated as "DSA") is an infamous staple of the software engineer interview experience. Data structures and algorithms problems are the most well-known for being part of the FAANG interview process, especially for Google.

Here are our Top 5 favorite points from this masterclass (in no particular order):

- **DSA prep is insanely high ROI** - In fact, the return on investment for time spent on DSA studying makes it one of the highest yield activities any human can do period. If you haven't worked at FAANG / Big Tech before, switching into it is likely to increase your pay by 50%+. If you're in the US, this will often mean a raise of $50k+. So the next time you're feeling burnt out from DSA studying, keep this very bright light at the end of the tunnel in mind.
- **Leetcode and Glassdoor are all you need** - DSA studying is a solved problem. You can use other, newer tools if you want, but the old-school ones still work just fine. Glassdoor in particular is naturally very effective given the "Big" nature of "Big Tech". Go through the recent data points from Glassdoor if you're interviewing for Big Tech and make sure you have a good grip on recurring recent problems.
- **Learning DSA is all about pattern recognition** - For 80%+ of DSA problems, there will be some 1-2 liner "trick" that represents the whole solution. For example, the "trick" to 2 sum is "Look for the difference and use a set/dictionary". It is not scalable to memorize solutions as code - Look for patterns and remember solutions as that high-level insight.
- **Communicate, communicate, communicate** - Since FAANG companies are so huge, there are naturally going to be far more stakeholders on every project, making alignment far more important. Because of this, Big Tech companies will often closely judge your communication skills during the interview. Don't just code in silence - Even if you get the right answer, you may still fail for not maintaining a dialogue with your interviewer.
- **Don't forget about space** - Most people are aware of big O run-time complexity, but candidates often forget about space complexity. Make sure to talk about both when you analyze your solution. As a side note, remember that a recursive solution will *not* be O(1) space.

Related resources:

- [\[Course\] Master The Data Structures And Algorithms Interview](https://www.jointaro.com/course/master-the-data-structures-and-algorithms-interview/)
- [How Alex Got Into Meta With 0 Prior LeetCode Experience](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/ZYiTbN21FsqFxFdpwt5a/how-alex-got-into-meta-with-0-prior-leetcode-experience/)
- ["How do I balance my time between studying DSA and fleshing out my portfolio?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/fhV2SCn56aYF4gfPVLmV/how-do-i-balance-my-time-between-studying-dsa-and-fleshing-out-my-portfolio/)
- ["Should I quit to prep for interviews?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Cno3oaZkvUu7BPLhHB7g/should-i-quit-to-prep-for-interviews/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13uLUHDvZifjp2aVClGsW29nfuVpQYvrkGLP8cej0R_k/edit#slide=id.p)

[Masterclass] How To Learn Quickly In Tech

Related resources:
- ["How do I identify the core things to learn when picking up a new tech stack?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/0VfjTWl2gxCKS0PRHpRT/how-do-i-identify-the-core-things-to-learn-when-picking-up-a-new-tech-stack/)
- ["What’s the most effective way to switch domains in tech?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/eFr9vsyTSiYLCbtsj7RR/whats-the-most-effective-way-to-switch-domains-in-tech/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C0RYphpovijVp8s3JVjG9iYFT6hgPJNHabIeP8WF7V4/edit?usp=sharing)

[Masterclass] How To Come Up With 100k+ Users App Ideas You Can Build For Free

Start with a simple side project and keep iterating on it to separate your side project from the rest.

Related resources:
- [[Masterclass] How To Build And Grow Tech Products To 500k+ Users For Free](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/OEuX0KMhcnNSTJ50Voee/masterclass-how-to-build-and-grow-tech-products-to-500k-users-for-free/)
- [How Alex Made An App That Got 80k+ Users In 1 Month](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/GlSjjLhuUdHt5drq3l5F/how-alex-made-an-app-that-got-80k-users-in-1-month/)
- ["Finding a mobile app idea - How to do it?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KJ4VXh6rUhKbWeiJoRDe/finding-a-mobile-app-idea-how-to-do-it/)
- ["What are some of the side income or passive income sources you can suggest?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/URhejS9m02tEFM9WLZsd/what-are-some-of-the-side-income-or-passive-income-sources-you-can-suggest/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ai8lxU1B-bH35iiSFf5hvk6NjAHpUyF2rshjyDipvaY/edit?usp=sharing)

What To Do If Your Manager Pings You Too Much

Receiving tons of interruptive messages or "can you take a quick look at this?" pings is something that every successful engineer must deal with.

The underlying cause of getting pinged too much by your manager is generally an indication that you're not effectively guarding your time.

A few options to consider:

- Understand the demands on your manager. Why do they feel the need to ping you so much? Do they not understand what you're doing, or perhaps they're facing a ton of pressure from their manager about high-pri bugs?
- Document how you're spending your time, and how that is making it harder for you to do the higher priority work.
- When you talk to your manager about the issue, bring up a proposed solution along with calling out the problem.

Related resources:

- ["How does one effectively handle pressure especially when the stakes are high?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/Bxle0iRRpQXJV88KTpn4/how-does-one-effectively-handle-pressure-especially-when-the-stakes-are-high/)
- ["How to figure out what the most important projects are?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/CgCPA60bDDHoOteN7Lmb/how-to-figure-out-what-the-most-important-projects-are/)

Why Great Engineering Managers Are Like Captain America

There is far more to software engineering than shipping code. A truly effective engineering manager needs to step up with these issues to protect the team.

Here are the core points from the video:

- **A good engineering manager is a shield** - In particular, engineering managers should handle non-technical issues like politics and organizational thrash, abstracting that pain away from their engineers so they have the clarity to execute.
- **Alex's Manager Shielding Story** - When Alex joined his team at Robinhood, the product roadmap wasn't very clear. There definitely wasn't enough well scoped out work for the team to work on. To shield the team from this product direction thrash, he created a high-impact infrastructure project for the team to work on, giving them the scope necessary to not get destroyed in performance review from doing nothing.

If you're interested in how Alex led that Robinhood infrastructure project despite being new to the company, watch his case study about it here: [\[Case Study\] Becoming A Tech Lead Again In Just 1 Month After Joining Robinhood From Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/X8vpfJooDpsX915ouC00/case-study-becoming-a-tech-lead-again-in-just-1-month-after-joining-robinhood-from-meta/)

Related resources:

- [How Do Effective Engineering Leaders Help Their Teams Achieve More?](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xGJDCG7VL4hcZaq5XL92/how-do-effective-engineering-leaders-help-their-teams-achieve-more/)
- ["How possible is it to spot red flags about toxic culture during the interview?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/1JwmhC3Nh9Ku0fkDL1bq/how-possible-is-it-to-spot-red-flags-about-toxic-culture-during-the-interview/)

What To Do If Your Manager Doesn’t Care About Your Work

This clip explores a common frustration where employees feel ignored by their managers, even when providing regular updates. The root cause is usually a misalignment in perceived project importance.

- **Perceived neglect often stems from misaligned priorities**: If your manager appears disengaged, it's likely because your project isn't among the top priorities they are focused on.
- **Managers typically operate with a clear project hierarchy**: In teams with many contributors, managers mentally stack-rank initiatives. Only a few projects (typically the top 1–2) receive the lion’s share of attention and resources.
- **Impact matters more than effort**: You may be doing good work, but if it’s not on a high-impact initiative, it won’t attract your manager’s attention or advocacy.
- **You have two options**:
  1. **Switch to a higher-priority project** that better aligns with team goals.

  2. **Build a compelling case** for why your current project should be elevated in importance—explain its impact, urgency, and strategic value.
- **Visualizing impact can help**: The graph referenced (a power law curve) illustrates that a small number of projects generate most of the value. Aim to work on—or reframe your work as—one of those high-leverage efforts.

Good Engineering Managers Simply Care

- A good manager understands that if your personal life isn't going well, your work performance will almost certainly be negatively affected.
- This is why good EMs genuinely care about how you're doing as a person.
  - In 1:1s, they will always listen intently.
  - If you're not doing well, they will allocate extra time to help you figure things out and just to be there to support you.

Related resources:
- ["What's the boundary between what's okay to share with your manager vs. what's not? Are some things simply too deep?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3L4B8iqM7D5GYsYy6xWx/whats-the-boundary-between-whats-okay-to-share-with-your-manager-vs-whats-not-are-some-things-simply-too-deep/)
- [1 on 1s Are The Time To Be Awkward](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xjeFRpp5YHxG9TTK8wjn/1-on-1s-are-the-time-to-be-awkward/?revalidate=true)

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.