Name: The First Thing You Need To Do Before Figuring Out Your Next Company And Team
Uploaded: 2022-10-31T22:03:28+00:00
Duration: 6 min 19 s
Description: Choosing the right company and team for you as a software engineer is one of the most important decisions you'll make, a

The First Thing You Need To Do Before Figuring Out Your Next Company And Team

Choosing the right company and team for you as a software engineer is one of the most important decisions you'll make, and given the high turnover in the tech industry, is a decision that you will have to make multiple times. This is why having the right mentality here is so crucial, which is what this video covers.

Here are the core points:
- Everyone is different - There is simply no "one size fits all" career path for everyone. FAANG companies are great overall of course, but there are going to *many* people and situations where it doesn't make sense to go there.
- Before thinking about your next move, have an honest conversation with yourself and those close to you about your priorities. *Your goal is to create a stack-ranked lists of your priorities.*
- Prioritization is a much harder exercise than people realize as there's simply so many angles to it. Here the ones mentioned in the video:
  - Compensation
  - Work-life balance
  - Company prestige
  - Supportiveness of team
  - Growth opportunities
  - Stability
  - Maximum outcome (risk tolerance)
  - Remote work
  - Product space
  - Company ethics
  - Technical space
  - Level/title
  - Benefits
  - Location

This clip was taken from the following masterclass: [[Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/0WEmTNZOMIh8xAdfO3JH/masterclass-how-to-choose-a-good-company-and-team-as-a-software-engineer/)

Related resources:
- ["How do I know when it's time to leave a team/company?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/2Ahiy6ZtUYWDjkSoG3Zk/how-do-i-know-when-its-time-to-leave-a-teamcompany/) - This is the Q&A that Rahul mentioned in this video.
- ["What's the difference between Big Tech and startups in terms of learning and growth?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/KWXIrFIR1EIJsvdOdo7u/whats-the-difference-between-big-tech-and-startups-in-terms-of-learning-and-growth/)

Choosing the right company and team for you as a software engineer is one of the most important decisions you'll make, a

Alex worked at PayPal and then as a tech lead across Course Hero, Meta, and Robinhood. He's now building Taro, empowering software engineers to be happier and more effective.

Often refers to the "Big 5": Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. They have all broken the 1 trillion dollar mark at some point and are premier career destinations for software engineers.

This collection represents the best of what Taro has to offer, personally curated by Alex and Rahul. If you're short on time, go through the content here.

Tech has one of the highest rates of job switching, making this skill incredibly high-leverage and vital to master. Understand what it takes to convince companies you are strongly competent.

The first step to career growth is to choose a good team that works for you and your goals. The career advice here teaches you how to do just that.

[Masterclass] How To Choose A Good Company And Team As A Software Engineer

Choosing the right company (or team) is one of the highest leverage decisions you'll make in your career, so it's worth doing some reflection!

It’s all about your priorities

- Figure out what’s important to you and what’s not. Create a stack-ranked list of all of these and work backwards from the top 2-3 to figure out the best opportunities for you
- People don’t realize how many angles there are to this. Here’s all the ones from the presentation: *Compensation, work-life balance, company prestige, supportiveness of team, growth opportunities, stability, maximum outcome (risk), remote work, product space, company ethics, technical space, level/title, benefits, location*

Supportiveness and overall quality of the team are often underrated

- It’s really hard to grow and have a healthy work life without this
- If you like your manager/teammates and you feel like you’re regularly learning/being challenged by them, deeply cherish that. People underestimate how hard it is to find an environment like this. Even in a prestigious company like Big Tech, this is difficult to find.

Big Tech vs. Startups

- At the end of the day, it’s all about your risk tolerance - Startups can have insane monetary/promotion outcomes, but they also might collapse the next year.
- In a vacuum: Start off at a Big Tech company to build a good foundation and then switch into smaller companies to have more scope/ownership

Some things you should NOT spend time on:

❌ Don't focus on how much you liked (or did not like) the people in the interview process. The recruiter/interviewer is NOT representative of your life at the company. Instead, focus on trends of the people joining the company, rather than individual data points.

❌ Don't spend time looking at the financials of the company. Even if you do decide to dig into the numbers, there's a good chance you'll screw up the interpretation -- humans have a really hard time with exponential growth.

Learning the quality of a team

- Talk to engineers/ICs if you can - The manager will inherently be biased towards their own team as they are often goaled on hiring
- Make sure that the team has a healthy oncall process and fast code review iteration

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] What Software Engineers Should Look For In Their Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/oeY7ncZhzJ5NO6dij5e7/masterclass-what-software-engineers-should-look-for-in-their-engineering-manager/)
- [“How can you tell if a large public company is going in the right direction?”](https://www.jointaro.com/question/TrlweQQ7DveTnYBP9VUH/how-can-you-tell-if-a-large-public-company-is-going-in-the-right-direction/)
- [“What does it mean to not have enough scope to be promoted?”](https://www.jointaro.com/question/bJuagPwOEEy5vkcXKkqh/what-does-it-mean-to-not-have-enough-scope-to-be-promoted/)
- [“What should I look for in a new team in terms of growth?”](https://www.jointaro.com/question/i2bOMPrqaRc0NUZ7918F/what-should-i-look-for-in-a-new-team-in-terms-of-growth/)
- [Presentation Slides](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1S_kULq5zzVLkcoKy0bKJ2IHSrjL3s2VbOLe8p1TQJ7s/edit?usp=sharing)