Communication Q&A and Videos

Recently my company has split up a core team into two teams. One team is to keep on building the core infrastructure for the product and the other team is supposed to be working in an advisory position with other web applications teams that depend on the core infrastructure. Without dwelling into more details, this core team builds, and maintains datastores, that other web applications consume. A big part of the job is to build google search type infra (on a much smaller scale of course) and data processing pipelines.

Now working with other teams is exciting. But just focusing on one task that is doing tickets/changes/investigations that help them implement some specific features w.r.t to core infra, is kinda troubling me. As it puts me in a passive position and does not clearly define metrics for success. It also puts me on the borderline as I am neither doing core infrastructure-related work nor I am completely part of the other team. The idea is to imitate how Staff engineers work across teams. But I am a Senior engineer (just recently promoted).

Though this is clearly a growth opportunity for me, I am a bit worried about falling behind and not meeting expectations. Any advice on working with cross-functional teams?

I'm an E5 iOS at a Big Tech company reporting to an M2. I'm leading the mobile side for a multi-quarter product project that leverages work from 2 platform teams. Most of the complexity of this project will be on the mobile side. My backend lead is an E6 full-stack web engineer reporting to an M1 who reports to my M2. The M1 is on parental leave until late Dec / early Jan. This E6 has been an amazing partner and teammate.

The 2 platform teams have missed a lot of their timelines. One dependency is about a month behind schedule. They often give us deliverables that are dev-complete and not tested (e.g., compilation errors, etc.). We have sync meetings 2x/week, but 1 platform team has never attended any of these meetings. The other platform team doesn't always send the same engineers to the meeting and doesn't always know the status of their own deliverables. That platform team's EM got terminated for performance reasons before this project started, so their M2 and a TPM have been tag-teaming to fill in the gap. That means sometimes their M2 attends the sync meetings, sometimes the TPM attends, sometimes both attend, and sometimes neither attends. The TPM sends a weather report on that team's deliverables every other week, but hasn't sent one in the past month. In his last email, he listed my E6 and me as the DRIs for their team's deliverables. When I confronted him about it, he said it was a mistake and he'll fix it in future emails. How do I bring visibility into these delays to external stakeholders?

I created a shared Google Doc to track all the dependencies, including when our team needs the deliverables, the other team's ETAs, and any notes. However, it's been challenging getting ETAs from the other teams. When I tagged them in the Google doc asking for ETAs, they just ignore me.

My manager gave me feedback to "influence engineers to hold up their timeline than push for hard commitments". Do you have any concrete advice here? I'm not sure how to do this.

After I escalated the 1st platform team's unresponsiveness to their Director (3 levels up), the E6 iOS DRI became very responsive. Escalating to that E6's skip level had not been effective. Should I just keep escalating everything or is there a better approach?

I currently work in a FAANG company, and I joined in the 3RD quarter of 2023. I am currently a SWE, but I did my masters in AI focusing on planning, reinforcement learning, and imitation learning. (I have 4 yoe relevant to my work and I have a 2 year Ms in AI. I'm currently an L5 engineer )

I need to communicate and reorient my career at my current company.

My manager has asked me initially if I am ok with the team and the product. They also communicated that since our product launch, the team will be in operational mode and hence, it would be good to network and build connections within the company so that I can eventually get into a green field initiative of my choice. Now I have these questions:

• How do I start the conversations for the same?
• What do I need to keep in mind and how do I figure out the details of teams and orgs that are doing what I am interested in?
• Anyone who has done this before, would you mind lending mentorship?

More details on the situation: Initially, I had a couple of conversations about joining at 1 level above, but I did not go through with, it because I knew I would have to do a safe transition and that 1 level above would make it too expensive for me to transition.

I have been doing good at my current company, been here for 3+ years working initially as an Entry Level, then promoted after an year to a MidLevel Software Engineer. I have been receiving "Exceeds Expectations i.e. 4/5" rating since the beginning and "Superb i.e. 5/5" rating once.

I applied for international relocation to Singapore back in July. The manager and skip mentioned that while cost cutting is going on, they are making an exception for me and it should be processed completely by initial weeks of January 2023. In times of layoffs, and especially with my company's stocks not doing that good, I am afraid if it could lead to getting laid off. This is causing me a bit of anxiety.

Although it is being mentioned by leadership that no layoffs are happening, we are seeing projects getting cut off, rigorous re-orgs happening, and entire focus of the organisation is on cost saving, which I feel is great especially in current times.

I started the conversations for relocation when times were going good in terms of offers being posted in the market. The teams were thriving as well in terms of work. But by the time entire process got over, it seems the situations have changed. What should I do?

To add on, another thing I did sometime back was to share with my manager on how I am performing several roles of the next level and how it can be used to further the cause of promotion in the upcoming performance reviews. I tried to break down the career ladder doc into key umbrellas of behaviours needed, and assigned the initiatives I delivered under those. Now afraid if this was another way I shot myself in the foot by asking for more in times of cost-saving and probably being conservative. Please assist with your advice.

How do you respond to an email or over a phone conversation from recruiter asking:

1. Recruiter: What leveling would you prefer? L5, L6, etc (This is for Amazon)
   My thoughts: I personally think I'm somewhere in between L5 and L6 (much closer to L6). But I'm not sure what the right response should be.
2. Recruiter: What are your compensation expectations? We have a limited amount of positions open at the moment (but more coming soon.) And we like to know a little more about this from each candidate so we don't waste anyone's time involved, specifically yours :)
   My thoughts: I don't want to give insanely high number to Tier 2/3 since I want to increase my chances of getting interviews. But for FAANG I don't want to give a smaller number either.

Could you please tell how to handle such questions?

We currently have a problem with test flakes happening very often.

Someone is currently working on a systemic fix, but in the meantime, I've taken it upon myself to be the leader in categorizing and assigning people to take on some of the existing flakes as they happen. I am assigning based on who has the most context or who wrote the original test.

My question is: How can I assign these in a way that doesn't cause people to dislike me? I ask as someone who needs to delegate in my role but also needs to get buy-in for various initiatives so its important that people like me.

A couple of things I've tried:

• Trying to be as helpful as possible, showing that as I'm assigning these I've done a little bit of investigation myself to try to fix it (even without much context) or give any info I can gather
• Asking in a polite way (maybe)? Here's a couple examples:
  • "@person, I saw this one flake a few times and noticed you were the original author. Would you be able to take a look when you get a chance?"
  • "@person it looks like we attempted to fix this here (link to github commit) but it seems to still be flaking. If it's ok, I'm gonna assign this one to you."

Any better wording of the "ask" or advice around this situation would be appreciated!

As a senior IC, I am included as part of leadership meetings (Director+). I gain a lot of early insights into business direction, which is great. However I would like to see how i can take part in the discussions and have effective conversations?

I am looking for a book suggestion and/or framework to use on how to go about improving on this?

Few dimensions which could impact this -

1. Personality of the individual
2. Awareness/one’s expertise of the topic being discussed

I'm reading "Deep Work" by Cal Newport about the value of long periods of focus, non-interrupted concentration to career success. This advice is especially relevant to software engineers where it helps to get into a flow state. I already don't have my inbox open all the time and check it between tasks. I'm wondering about going the next step and turning off Teams notifications. This seems like a big move because that allows my boss and coworkers to reach me instantly anytime. It also allows them to see when I'm online. So my question is, is this something that one can "get away with doing" at most workplaces? Obviously for me, I can just try it and see what happens and/or ask my manager about it. Just wondering if this would fly at most tech companies.

I've gotten feedback from a mid performance review and my manager wants to see improvements in various areas. It includes improving my debugging skills by paying closer attention to pertinent details (and not getting distracted) for example.

Since then, I've become much more conscious and aware of the errors that I run into and much more deliberate in my debugging approach. This has resulted in me being able to diagnose problems much more accurately, and has also lended to me problem-solving much more effectively as well.

The problem is I'm not sure how to best demonstrate (or prove) that value improvement to my manager. Unlike PRs (which are often more visible in the value it demonstrates) -- you see what you get, my debugging skills/tactics are not readily obvious to the outside party unless they're observing my day-to-day activity. I can say that I've gotten better but if I have nothing to back that up with aren't they just words without weight? Who's to say that I'm even right in my own assessment without social feedback? I could be dunning kruger for all I know.

Is it enough for me to simply document those performance improvements and share (or talk about) them with my manager?

Note: My ultimate goal is to get promoted so I'm trying to (1) show that I've taken their feedback seriously and (2) demonstrate actual improvement since my last performance review.

Let me know if I'm thinking about this the right way or if am I overcomplicating it. Thanks!

I will be moving to a new team soon. Is it recommended to ask for feedback from my old team before moving out.

I have good relationship with my team and I want to leverage them to know more about my overall contribution as a team player and engineer.

What is the best way to do that ? What type of questions I can ask ?

I want to avoid falling into same mistakes and grow faster in my new team.

I would like to understand how can I drive an effective Tech discovery session (just had a PRD walkthrough) with the team (remotely working) before we start writing a detailed system design document. The engineers are mostly L4 and are still learning how to effectively collaborate instead of full blown meeting.

When anyone asks "How is it going", I just say "Good, how are you doing".
There are always awkward pauses. I am skeptical about speaking anything without preparation in advance. Want to communicate well with others (not only in office but outside office too) that may lead to long term friendship with at least one or two people. Any coaching you recommend for extreme introverts to build this skill?

I've done various presentations throughout my career, and I always get stressed out doing them. I'll make slides/a script beforehand and pull all-nighters the day before. I'm okay presenting in front of smaller groups, but it's hard in front of larger groups.

How can I get more comfortable with this, especially with higher stakes presentations like those trying to get buy-in from a large group of senior+ engineers and tech leads?

I saw this , and I was wondering how I could do the same in my team. My PM and Team Lead are pretty busy, so I feel like the updates would help a lot keeping them in the loop.

However, unlike Meta, we don't have Workplace - Our main communication channel is Teams. I was wondering what my update (I'm thinking weekly cadence) could look like in this environment.

During design meetings, when there are questions that causes circling around a topic that is marked as out of topic. Even though I tell people that it is out of topic as we don't have time to build it and no plan to build it in future and people are still ask questions about same topic. When I personally feel its a nice to have feature but the scope has already been defined, what to tell and move forward to continue with the rest of the design?

I'm interviewing with a unicorn (1000+ employees) now and had my last interview on Monday which I passed. I'm now at the virtual onsite, which is 5 interviews totalling 2 hours and 40 minutes across 5 interviews.

I scheduled it for Wednesday and Thursday next week. My question relates to the timing and spacing of these interviews. They don't seem to mind that there are 9 days from my last interview to the onsite. In the interim, I interviewed with another company today (and made it to the next round).

For the onsite, I have to present a project I worked on in detail with slides, so I will need time over the weekend and weeknights to do this.

My question is, can/should I ask for more time until I do my interview, pushing it Monday and Tuesday of the following week? This would put 2 weeks in between my last interview and the onsite. The pros of this are a) more time to prep for it; and b) more time to get offers from other places.

I guess what I'm getting at is what is a 'reasonable' amount of time to ask for? Am I pushing too much if I ask to move to the following week?

Thanks!

Hi Taro Community,

During my recent 1:1 with my manager, we discussed the idea of me sending weekly updates about my work, and he was in favor of it. I want to ensure that these updates are concise, informative, and structured in a way that facilitates clear communication and showcases my progress effectively.

Could anyone share formats or templates they’ve successfully used for similar weekly updates to their managers? Any tips on what to include and what to avoid would also be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your insights!

Hello Everyone, I have 16+ years of Software Engineering and 6+ years of Engineering management experience. I have worked in 14 different companies (ranging from startups to FAANG --> ). And I really enjoy helping engineers grow, building teams and fostering the team culture.

Currently I am an Engineering Manager at Meta and I am interested to prepare a course that will benefit the highest amount of people on this platform.

Could you please pick the course (just comment with 1-10 number or suggest your title) from this list that you would like Taro to have:

1. Top 10 secrets of becoming an engineer managers like
2. How to be the top engineer of the team?
3. How to become an engineer that grows faster than anyone?
4. How to be an ideal engineer that manager wants to promote?
5. Top 10 mistakes engineers are usually doing in communication with their managers
6. The Hidden Pitfalls in Engineer-Manager Communication (and How to Avoid Them)
7. What Your Manager Wishes You Knew: Essential Communication Tips for Engineers
8. Cracking the Code of Manager-Engineer Communication: Common Mistakes and Solutions
9. How To Transition To M1
10. How To Be A Strong M1

I've shared feedback before with engineers more junior than me, and they didn't seem to take it well. They started avoiding our meetings afterwards - I feel like they thought their PSC was at risk. How can I prevent this situation from happening in the future when sharing feedback with E3s/E4s?

How to navigate working with new engineering manager who is away for 1st month?

From my first one-on-one with my new direct manager (M3), my new manager tell me that he will be away 1st month to travel to Asia for family visit. My new manager told me that he would only be avaliable during India timezone so he will not have any one-on-one with me due to time zone difference. So he asks me to work directly with the Director (M4) for this month. I have worked with this director for 8-12 months last year, who are my current Director (M4). Wanted to see if anyone has any thought on how to navigate through the next month while my direct manager is gone and won't be avaliable for me.

My direct manager reassures me that I will still have one-on-one with my skip on a weekly basis, and nothing should have changed since I worked with my Director (M4) before as I was his direct report as Senior Software Engineer.

Wanted to ask if there's anything that I should consider for this 1 month of transition with my new engineering manager?

English is not my first language. I have been keeping work journal but struggling to write good impact of my work. I am following the SBI model but when I write down my impacts they seem very simplistic.

for example, I wrote some training material for my team to teach them a piece of software i created. However, I am at loss to write good sentences to show the impact of this training very well.

In my culture we are not supposed to brag or talk ourselves up to others, so I really struggle at this.

Do you have tips and guidance how I could improve on this area?