Big Tech Q&A and Videos

At my old company, where I worked for many, many years, I wasn’t learning anything new. On my new team, I feel like a junior engineer since everything is new. Because of this, I don’t feel like I’m being taken seriously, even my engineers more junior than me.

I'm trying to stay positive throughout this learning process but would obviously like to build up respect among my team as quickly as possible to start feeling like a heavily valued voice in the room. Any advice on how to do that?

I've noticed that a lot of people don't put their graduation year for university on LinkedIn. I think this is because there's a strong fear in the tech world of being seen as old and out of date. I myself am wondering if I should remove my graduation year from LinkedIn. I graduated in 2018 and am aiming to break into FAANG.

I feel like as time goes on, it becomes more and more compelling to get rid of the year.

Eagerly awaiting people's thoughts.

In fast-paced organisations that launch a lot of features on a quarterly basis and teams with large sizes, how should a tech lead or team members ensure that everyone knows about everything or is enabled to get to know about it?

Quite often, whenever a new feature comes in, it could be repurposing technology built for other features as well. But, given the pace at which these are developed, it is often hard to know what everyone is working on. Sometimes, each of these features may have idiosyncracies that may be getting missed out by new joiners, especially due to the volume of information, especially for teams that have been in existence since a long time.

I recall once when changes for a new feature done by a developer reverted some conditionals for an older feature, thus causing an outage. How do you prevent this and ensure knowledge of everything is available to all, especially to people new to an organisation?

Also, are there some general practices to ensure that these are easily discoverable? Video recordings are time consuming to go through, and wikis though they exist, are sometimes difficult to navigate, when you don't know what you are searching for? I am thinking of something like a mind map could help here, but what are your thoughts?

I have been working for small companies for the past 5 years where the focus was on shipping the product fast and not necessarily on quality. I am now interviewing at big tech companies where the focus is on code quality and code scalability. I am concerned that even if I make it through the interview phase it will be hard for me to maintain my position after having bad coding practices for many years.

How can I get started in learning how to write clean, reusable and scalable code? I work primarily with JavaScript and Java. Can you point me to some resources to learn how to improve my code and apply best practices that will make me a great engineer? I am familiar with concepts like DRY, SOLID principles but I am looking for something actionable not some abstract concept.

I have worked at Meta my entire career (~5 years). I know that Meta is pretty "startup-ey" among the Big Tech companies, but I imagine that it can't mimic startups entirely and there's unique learning value startups can offer. Does switching to startups give big value to career development?

What's the right way to balance interviewing for FAANG roles when you have a full-time job? I've heard of people carving out their morning for an interview or interview prep, so dedicating 2-3 hours. Is this reasonable? What's a minimum amount of time I should spend on interview prep or interview every day?

This question assumes I don't have trouble getting interviews and have a few lined up. The prep I have in mind is the classic DSA/Leetcode, systems design, behavioural, mock interviews, etc.

Hi Taro Community

Just for backstory. I've been working for almost 4 years since graduating.

For my first two years, I worked at a big 5 company where I delivered and learned very little due to constant reorgs, politics, and toxic management. I wasn't performing and found a new job at a reputed, mid-size tech company.

Despite meeting expectations each cycle at this new company, I question if I truly belong in this field. I enjoy problem solving but I don't have a much interest in software as a craft (a trait that I see from top engineers on my team), nor do I really care about tech products.

I wonder if I'll have the longevity or motivation to stay in this field long term. (Companies don't want just average engineers like me, they want the best, most passionate people, right?) The good news is I have a great manager, team, and mentor right now -- all of which have helped me grow a lot despite all this.

I'm curious if there are some reframings or mindset shifts that some senior+ folks have made to make peace with or love their career path.

How do I demonstrate that I am seasoned in a way such that if a Big Tech company decided to give me a chance, I can put them at ease and show that I'll be successful? How does that look like across various levels?

I might join a Big Tech company later on in my career, and I know that choosing the right company has huge financial consequences due to the large RSU compensation.

How can one set themselves up for success here and pick a company with a good financial outlook? What metrics should I look at and is there some sort of website to help with this?

How do I find edge cases in DSA problems?

Are there some common edge cases that everybody knows about?

Is there some sort of method or procedure to find those edge cases?