Junior Software Engineer Key Signals
I will be interning at Meta during this summer. After watching Alex's amazing video regarding Meta's internship, I learned that interns are expected to perform at the level of an E3 new grad by the end.
I want to make sure I am correctly understanding the key signals a junior/new grad software engineer should be demonstrating. From what I understand, I come up with the following:
- Coding velocity (code output)
- Coding quality
- Independence (can unblock oneself without too much reliance on mentor)
- Debugging
- Asking great questions
- Responds well to feedback
- Builds great relationships with team members
- Disambiguation
I'm sure there is more to be included, so please feel free to add anything I may have missed. I hope this list could be helpful to other interns/new grads who are seeking to improve their skills.
![Senior Software Engineer [E5] at Meta company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Fmeta.jpeg%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Da7a5bcc0-e178-4b5b-b71e-09bf6c6aefae&w=48&q=75){kind=small}
![Mid-Level Software Engineer [E4] at Meta company logo](/_next/image/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffirebasestorage.googleapis.com%2Fv0%2Fb%2Ftech-career-growth.appspot.com%2Fo%2Fcompany_logos%252Fmeta_logo.png%3Falt%3Dmedia%26token%3Db5f837b1-c74f-4e2f-848b-1599f05624c5&w=48&q=75){kind=logo}
Discussion
(1 comment)- 1
7 days agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroYour list is good, but I would split it up like this:
Table Stakes
- Coding velocity (code output)
- Coding quality
- Independence (can unblock oneself without too much reliance on mentor)
- Debugging
- Asking great questions
- Responds well to feedback
These are the ones where you need to have very solid proficiency just to survive.
Nice-To-Have
- Builds great relationships with team members
- Disambiguation
You need to have made some progress on these as an E3, but you can be very rough around the edges with these 2 and still survive as an E3. For these behaviors, it's more about you planting the seeds. The seeds will mature once you start meaningfully progressing to E4 (mid-level) and will bloom even further as you grow from E4 -> E5 (senior).
In the beginning, just focus on the table stakes as that will take a lot of time, especially since you're an intern. Most engineers will take the entire internship just to nail the first 3 (code velocity, code quality, independence).
If you're interested on the progression from junior to mid-level, you can check out the course: Grow From Junior To Mid-Level Engineer: L3 To L4
