Homework: Define Your Engineering Management System

If you want direct interview support from Alex and Uzair, take their live Maven course with discount code **TARO10**: <https://maven.com/alex-kliotzkin/acing-em-interviews>

To answer engineering manager (EM) behavioral interview questions effectively, it’s essential to clearly articulate your **leadership style and decision-making frameworks**. Interviewers expect thoughtful, structured responses that show how you operate as a leader across the core responsibilities of the role.

- **Three Core EM Responsibilities**: Every EM must deliver results, lead the team, and manage stakeholders. You must show systems and habits that support all three.
- **Delivery Systems**: Explain how you ensure *sustainable delivery*—using tools like KPIs, OKRs, sprint metrics, dashboards, and demolocation strategies.
- **Team Leadership**: Be ready to share your approach to building *high-performance cultures*, setting team structures, conducting 1:1s, growing individuals, and setting vision and expectations.
- **Stakeholder Management**: Detail how you *influence and align* stakeholders—through communication systems, relationship building, regular reporting, and rituals like syncs and buy-ins.

Writing down these frameworks helps reinforce your leadership identity and provides a solid foundation for compelling interview storytelling. Let me know if you’d like help turning this into a worksheet or practice guide.

Taro Book Club: The Pragmatic Programmer - Session 6

Session Led by [Bikram Kashyap](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kashyapbikram/)

In this #taro-bookclub discussion, we'll go over [**"The Pragmatic Programmer"**](https://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X) by Andrew Hund & David Thomas

Here's the agenda:

- Design by Contract
- Dead Programs Tell No Lies
- Assertive Programming
- How to Balance Resources
- Don't Outrun Your Headlights

Please send your questions ahead of time to [**Bikram Kashyap**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kashyapbikram/) in the [**Taro Premium**](https://www.jointaro.com/membership/) Slack, so that they can be included in the discussion. *If you don't have the book or want more details on how this all works, check out the #taro-bookclub channel in the Taro Premium Slack as well!*

Get ready for another engaging and informative session!

Paper Reading: Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models

Session led by [Mike A](https://www.linkedin.com/in/malik-mike-a-32b63818b/)

Join us for the second installment of our three-part paper reading series on the LLaMA series of Large Language Models (LLMs).

In this session, we will dive into **Llama 2**, the second iteration in the LLaMA family of models, introduced by Meta AI in mid-2023. This follow-up to the original LLaMA models brings significant advancements, offering foundational and fine-tuned versions with parameter counts ranging from 7B to 70B. Llama 2 models set new benchmarks in helpfulness and safety, showcasing impressive capabilities in dialogue-based tasks and outperforming many open-source alternatives.

We will explore the innovations behind the **Llama 2** models, focusing on their **pretraining methodology**, the **fine-tuning process** that incorporates Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF), and the novel techniques Meta AI used to enhance model safety and alignment. Particular emphasis will be placed on the **Llama 2-Chat models**, optimized for multi-turn conversations, along with references to their performance on real-world safety benchmarks.

This session will be an insightful discussion of how the Llama 2 models have helped to close the gap between open-source and closed-source systems like ChatGPT, examining their architecture, training data, and the steps taken to ensure responsible release and deployment. We'll highlight key takeaways from Meta AI's comprehensive evaluation of these models and discuss how they are still reshaping the landscape of open-source AI.

Whether you're a researcher, developer, or AI enthusiast, this paper reading will offer you an in-depth understanding of the **Llama 2** models and their contributions to the ongoing development of LLMs. This is a unique opportunity to review cutting-edge advancements in **LLM safety**, **dialogue optimization**, and their impact on the future of open-source AI systems.

Mark your calendars for an informative hour of "Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models," as we continue to chart the progress of AI language models and explore the innovations that continue to shape the future of the field!

[https://lmarena.ai/\
https://github.com/meta-llama/llama](https://lmarena.ai/￼https://github.com/meta-llama/llama)

Paper Reading: Self-Discover - Empowering Large Language Models with Autonomous Reasoning Structures

In this talk, we delve into Self-Discover, an innovative framework revolutionizing Large Language Models (LLMs) by enabling them to autonomously discern task-specific reasoning structures, thereby empowering them to tackle complex problems without explicit prompting. 

At the heart of Self-Discover lies a self-discovery process, wherein LLMs independently select and amalgamate various atomic reasoning modules, such as critical thinking and step-by-step reasoning, into explicit structures to guide their decoding process. The broad applicability of these self-discovered structures across diverse model families—from PaLM2-L to GPT-4 and from GPT-4 to Llama2—underscores the framework's versatility and adaptability, suggesting seamless integration with an even wider range of advanced AI models. This holds promise for a unified approach to autonomous reasoning in artificial intelligence.\
\
Whether you're an AI researcher, engineer, or simply curious about this achievement in AI research, join us as we explore the intricacies of Self-Discover and its potential implications for prompt engineering and advancing the capabilities of Large Language Models in complex reasoning tasks.\
\
Paper: [**https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03620.pdf**](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.03620.pdf)

Lucia on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-mocz-ph-d-35a98a1b6/>

Team Dynamics

If you want direct interview support from Alex and Uzair, take their live Maven course with discount code **TARO10**: <https://maven.com/alex-kliotzkin/acing-em-interviews>

To stand out in EM interviews, it’s not enough to understand the company—you also need to empathize with the **team’s specific challenges**. By researching and anticipating what the team needs, you can tailor your answers to resonate with the hiring manager and demonstrate high potential fit.

- **Put Yourself in the Hiring Manager’s Shoes**: Use empathy to analyze what the team is responsible for and what challenges might be preventing sustainable delivery.
- **Anticipate Common Team Challenges**: These may include stakeholder alignment in large orgs, speed in startups, product robustness, scaling issues, or even interpersonal conflicts like team infighting.
- **Showcase Relevant Experience**: Prepare stories from your own background that reflect how you’ve solved similar problems or would approach the challenges facing this specific team.
- **Turn the Interview into a Conversation**: Ask insightful questions to learn more about the team’s current pain points. This shows curiosity, initiative, and models what working with you would be like.

Why Don't More Big Tech Engineers Contribute To Open Source?

The modern software industry runs on open source software. Should more software engineers (especially those in Big Tech) contribute back to open source?

Building A Strong Team Culture

In this lesson, Philip shares how he built and maintained a strong engineering culture while launching Meta’s London engineering office. Drawing on lessons from Meta’s Seattle expansion and advice from leaders who had built engineering sites at other companies, he explains how deliberately choosing the right founding team can shape a new office for years to come.

- **Learn from other teams before building your own.** Philip drew on both mistakes he observed while helping grow Meta Seattle and lessons from experienced site leaders to avoid reinventing the wheel when launching London.
- **A committed core team helps preserve culture during rapid growth.** Philip believes short three- or six-month landing teams leave too little time to establish a durable culture. Having experienced employees commit for two years provided stability while large numbers of new hires joined.
- **Select founding team members for culture, leadership, and technical strength.** Philip evaluated nearly 50 volunteers to choose 12 people who understood Meta’s culture, could bring and lead meaningful work, and would help establish strong hiring standards for the new office.

How Do I Know If I'm Making Progress With Leetcode?

It's demoralizing to get stuck on similar problems repeatedly. How do you know if you're making progress?

Course: <https://www.jointaro.com/course/crash-course-data-structures-and-algorithms-concepts/>

The Mistake Engineers Make During The Reverse Interview

Too many engineers don't think critcally about the impact of the last 5-10 minutes of an interview.

You Can't Be Promoted Over Your Manager's Objection

In this lesson, we discuss why **your manager’s active support is one of the most important ingredients in earning a senior promotion**. Even when a manager genuinely wants to help, advancing your career may not be their highest priority, so employees sometimes need to proactively manage the process themselves—prompting their manager, asking for introductions, and making it easier for them to build the relationships and champion support required for promotion.

- **Help your manager help you:** If your manager is supportive but not proactive, give them specific, manageable requests—such as introducing you to a senior leader who could eventually provide promotion feedback.
- **Manager support is effectively a prerequisite:** Senior leaders are unlikely to promote someone over their direct manager’s objection because doing so undermines the manager and creates an organizational conflict. If your manager will not support your advancement, you may need to win their support or move to a manager who will.
- **Seek managers who actively develop and promote talent:** A manager with a track record of helping strong performers advance can become a powerful career partner. The strongest relationships can be mutually beneficial, with an employee’s success strengthening the manager’s organization while the manager actively creates opportunities for the employee to progress.

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

Working With Zuck And Other Impressive ICs

In this lesson, Philip reflects on what he learned from working alongside some of Meta’s most influential leaders and senior engineers. He shares what stood out about leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew “Boz” Bosworth—particularly their willingness to seek feedback, continually develop their skills, and make deliberate improvements even after reaching highly influential positions.

- **Exceptional leaders remain committed to their own growth.** Philip observed that leaders like Zuckerberg and Bosworth continued to seek coaching, respond to feedback, and deliberately improve their skills rather than assuming they had finished developing once they reached senior positions.
- **The best engineers can create impact far beyond their immediate responsibilities.** Philip recalls John Carmack quickly identifying technical and performance improvements in a product he hadn't worked on for months, demonstrating the depth of insight that can distinguish exceptional technical talent.
- **The highest-impact ICs are often force multipliers.** Scott Renfro stood out not only for his ability to deliver large, complex initiatives, but for making the engineers around him better through thoughtful feedback, supportive code reviews, and a willingness to invest time in others’ success.

Creating Leverage and Owning Your Agency

In this lesson, we discuss how **setting boundaries at work becomes much easier when you have leverage and are genuinely willing to act on your alternatives**. When faced with an unreasonable manager or unsustainable workload, timing and preparation matter: difficult conversations are more effective when they happen outside the heat of a crisis, and meaningful boundaries require enough confidence and optionality to accept that the answer may ultimately be “no.”

- **Build leverage before you need it:** Strong performance, valuable skills, professional relationships, and outside opportunities give you more freedom to advocate for yourself without relying on aggressive demands.
- **Set boundaries before the next crisis:** Address recurring problems during calmer moments rather than waiting until another unreasonable request arrives, giving both you and your manager time to find a better solution.
- **Recognize and use your agency:** If an organization consistently treats employees as replaceable or refuses to improve an unsustainable situation, changing your circumstances may require additional effort first—whether that means networking, developing new skills, or finding another opportunity.

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

Should You Be A Generalist or A Specialist?

In this lesson, Philip explores one of the fundamental career decisions for engineers: whether to become a generalist or specialize deeply in a particular area. Drawing from his own career as a generalist, he argues that while specialization can be incredibly valuable for people with an exceptional aptitude or passion for a specific field, most early-career engineers may benefit from exploring broadly before committing to one path.

- **Explore before you specialize.** Unless you already have an unusually strong aptitude for a particular field, Philip recommends experimenting with different areas early in your career before committing deeply to one specialty.
- **Avoid over-specializing at the expense of broader capabilities.** Developing breadth gives you a better understanding of your strengths and helps prevent becoming so narrowly focused that you lack useful skills outside your specialty.
- **Consider the longevity of the field you specialize in.** Technologies can become obsolete, potentially leaving highly specialized professionals with skills that are less valuable. Generalists may have an advantage in adapting as technology, AI, and industry needs evolve.

How Bad Managers Get Managed Out

In this lesson, we discuss why **managing out an underperforming manager can be more complicated than managing out an individual contributor**. Managers tend to have more experience, their performance is harder to measure objectively, and they understand how the organizational system works. As a result, addressing poor management often involves subtle conversations, negotiated exits, or a carefully documented performance-management process.

- **Manager performance can be difficult to measure:** Unlike obvious individual performance problems, weaknesses in management may involve leadership, hiring, team outcomes, or execution that are harder to quantify and document.
- **Experienced managers understand the system:** Because managers know how performance processes work, they may recognize early signals that their position is at risk and begin protecting themselves or looking for another opportunity.
- **Exits may happen through negotiation or formal performance management:** Leaders may first signal that the relationship is not working and explore a mutually acceptable transition. If that fails, they can move toward documented expectations and performance management, although managers may choose to leave before that process concludes.

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

Machine Learning System Design Ask & Learn

**Event description**

Join us remotely for an interactive Q&A with Ilya Reznik—Founder of MLEPath, veteran ML engineer with nearly 15 years at Meta, Twitter, and Adobe, and interviewer of hundreds of real-world ML system design (MLSD) interviews (plus nearly 1,000 mock sessions in the last two years). Whether you’re tackling your first MLSD interview or leveling up for senior roles.

- **Core frameworks & approaches**: how to structure your end-to-end design, balance scalability, latency, cost, and reliability
- **Key components & trade-offs**: data pipelines, model serving, feature stores, monitoring, and A/B testing
- **Real-world insights**: pitfalls Ilya’s seen candidates fall into—and what top performers do differently
- **Live feedback**: get tailored advice on designing everything from recommendation systems to real-time anomaly detection

Perfect for ML engineers aiming to land roles at FAANG, startups, or anywhere that demands rock-solid system design chops. Come ready with your toughest questions—and leave with a clear, actionable roadmap for your next MLSD interview.

Joining OpenAI

In this lesson, Philip explains what brought him back to the technology industry after leaving Facebook, pursuing nonprofit work, and spending time away from traditional tech companies. Philip shares why he chose to apply only to OpenAI, how his experience at Facebook shaped his preference for working with a market leader, and what impressed him about OpenAI’s exceptionally high concentration of engineering talent. 

- **Recognize major technological transitions and decide whether you want to participate in them.** After experiencing the internet and mobile revolutions from Microsoft and the rise of social networking from Facebook, Philip viewed AI as a potentially even larger shift and deliberately chose to re-enter the industry to be part of it.
- **Market leaders have the freedom to experiment.** Philip prefers working for the category leader because a strong market position creates room to take ambitious risks, tolerate failures, and explore unconventional ideas rather than spending most of the organization’s energy catching up with a competitor.
- **Technical breakthroughs eventually need great products.** Philip was struck by OpenAI’s extraordinary engineering talent, but also observed that as competition grows, technical superiority alone becomes less sufficient. Turning research into reliable, compelling products becomes increasingly important.

Why There Will Be Fewer Product Managers In Tech

The trend is clear: engineers will have increasingly more power in the workplace, and the number of PMs needed for 'alignment' will diminish.

The Plan To Make Taro Q&A Suck Less - 9/13/2022

- **Update:** Literally a few hours after recording this video, the ability to like answers on Taro web was shipped.
- The #1 priority with the Q&A platform is adding notifications. Here are some important ones:
  - Being notified when someone answers a question that you have asked
  - Being notified when someone likes an answer that you have shared, as you should be able to feel good if you have shared your wisdom in a high-quality answer
- Overall strategy: Make the process of asking a question and getting answers delightful and silky smooth, as you can't have answers without questions. From there, make it a great experience and rewarding to answer questions.
- Ideas:
  - The ability to write a private "Thank You" note to someone who left a really great answer on your question.
  - Question askers can choose and highlight an answer on each of their questions, which helped them the most. This is another way to let question answerers know the impact they're having.

Backchanneling

In this lesson, we discuss how **backchanneling can be used to build alignment, uncover concerns, and strengthen support before important decisions are made**. Effective backchanneling isn’t about secretly undermining others; it’s about having one-on-one conversations where stakeholders can speak candidly, ask questions, and feel that their perspectives have been heard. These conversations can build the trust and emotional buy-in that often influence decisions alongside the facts themselves.

- **Use backchannels to understand concerns:** Private conversations give stakeholders space to raise questions or reservations they may be uncomfortable discussing in a public meeting, providing valuable information before a decision is made.
- **Build trust before you need support:** Consulting people individually helps them feel heard and respected while demonstrating that you are someone they can work with when problems arise.
- **Distinguish alignment from manipulation:** Positive backchanneling creates understanding and support you would be comfortable discussing openly, while negative backchanneling relies on hidden agendas or undermining others. Understanding someone’s underlying motivations can also help you respond more effectively when you encounter the latter.

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

Recruiting Champions & What's In It For Them

In this lesson, we discuss how **senior promotions often depend on having credible champions who can validate that you are already operating at the next level**. When those relationships do not develop naturally through your work, you and your manager can deliberately create opportunities for senior leaders to become familiar with your contributions well before the promotion cycle begins.

- **Start building champions months before the promotion:** Ideally, your manager should identify potential supporters early and let them know that they will eventually be asked for feedback, giving them time to observe your work rather than receiving a last-minute request.
- **Create natural opportunities for senior leaders to know your work:** If necessary, approach potential champions yourself, explain the promotion process, and ask how you can keep them informed or collaborate in ways that allow them to provide meaningful feedback later.
- **Build more relationships than the process requires:** Some potential champions may leave, reorganize, or ultimately decline to provide feedback, so develop several possible supporters and connect your work to outcomes that matter to them rather than relying on only the minimum number required.

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

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.