Mid-level Engineer Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

The leadership principle is as follows:

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

I have a hard time with this, e.g. my team is debating between two JavaScript frameworks. How do I stay firm in the decision while keeping others positive?

Big companies have multiple teams across. There will be a team just for the login, a team for backend logic, etc. There are so many teams and microservices and internal jargon all around.

Problem is during team meeting, seniors have more in depth discussion where I'm unable to provide value as good as them.

How do I get familiar with them fast? Or am I focusing on the wrong idea and should just narrow down what I'm working on and just let time do its thing?

Thanks

I joined Tiktok coming from not such a big company & fast culture. I had two projects where I needed to read massive code bases for tasks. The code base is in C++. A language I haven't used in years. How should I go about it?

Should I spend time learning the language before diving into the code or otherwise? I feel under-confident; other engineers scan & understand code even when they don't know the language too well.

Always been on the fence here whether an MBA helps me boost my visibility, help me learn more business skills and builds a well rounded profile than "you're just another average software engineer" which could help me get into management track and above faster than my peers?

In other industries, having an MBA is a requirement, but not so much in tech yet, apparently.

Happy to hear back thoughts form folks about this with some recommendations

WLB also means something different to people and therefore I'm curious what the best way is to discover the "truth" of the team you are interviewing into before both applying and joining a company.

For example, when I worked at Amazon, I did not work beyond 40 hours in either of my teams, but the occasional weekend because I was oncall, and this was fine for me personally. At Google Cloud, I was working longer during the weekdays (self-imposed because this was during COVID and I never worked weekends), but other teams at Google have been more relaxed in general.

I've been told Meta, Amazon and a few others have a poor WLB balance, but then I've also spoken to managers (and experienced it myself in the case of Amazon) that this is team dependant and manager dependant. I also assume it varies by your level.

That said, I'm a DE, so likely the stress level overall is also different to a SWE, hence this post.

Hello,

As the title says, I’m stuck as an entry level engineer in FAANG for almost 4 years now. I’ve been reflecting on what I’m doing wrong.

My first company I worked for 1 year and didn’t not like it because the lack of mentorship. I joined and my questions never got answered, the tech lead didn’t really care about giving mentorship, just gave me links and bug IDs. I was able to survive for 1 year but I left the company because I felt so lost. My manager mentioned that I was “on track” to getting promoted but I hated the culture.

Then worked for 1.9 years on another company, where I received awards for my projects and contributions. I did receive mentorship here, but I was not able to get promoted. At the end of the timeline my manager mentioned I was moving slower and slower. I was working as a full stack and I believe my error here was not playing my strengths, since every time I had to take another project it would be on a different area, such as server on a language I never used before. I had a few discussions with my tech lead and I felt I lost my team trust because they would give a lot of comments, and just get a lot feedback from other people. This kinda demoralized me and made it hard to keep working so I changed teams. My last team I worked for 8 months before getting laid off. Here I also received recognition for my projects. My first project I missed the deadline because the onboarding had nothing to do with my project. I integrated our tool with an external team, so most of the code base I worked was not even ours (the techlead and team didn’t have much knowledge). Then I was given another project where I was starting to get traction, onboarding and project matched, I had to ramp up again on the new tech stack and my manager was getting frustrated with me, my team was very helpful and I was slowly to become independent. I feel like people trusted me here and code reviews would go smooth this time, at the end I was finally getting positive feedback, but was affected by the layoffs. From reflecting, here is what I did wrong:

• Not communicating well enough my work with my managers. Status updates I was blocked/learning and that would make me look slow.

• Not very good mentorship, I feel like at the beginning I needed lots of 1:1 to be able to learn our teams codebase. Sometimes I got very good mentorship but not complete. So I learned well parts of the code base where the tech stack applied.

• Switching projects too much, went from front end, full stack, server side with several languages. Every time I had to re learn a lot of new of the tech stack.

I did get several recognitions for my contribution with at least helps me think I’m not completely inadequate for the field.

I am looking for a new position, is there anything that could help me perform well as a mid engineer?

Thanks

Hello Taro Community

I want to pick a specialization now due to the market and the lessons I’ve learnt being in the group.

A little context on the issue:

I had a mindset that more technologies I know the more options I’ll have and also working as a full stack dev in my last position I got a lot of hands on experience on different stacks. More like breadth of knowledge but not depth.

I was applying to jobs like Database, UI/UX, Front End, Back End, Software and DevOps couldn’t land any interview in the last job hunt.

Last month I let everything go and I told myself I’ll specialize in “Full Stack”. I have been also working on side projects for my portfolio.

However, a lot of senior devs told me Full stack is too broad and 2 and 1/2 years of experience that won’t cut it.

I want to specialize in Front End with React and go very deep in that. Build projects pertaining to React Front End for my portfolio.

My fears:

• I’m closing down my options, and limiting myself to Front End
• Also being a foreign student where you kinda have to “work in tech” since that’s my major a lot of fear is coming up. In case the time I go back in the industry there is lack of front end openings
• A lot of family friends in the industry telling me that Front-End specialization will be a waste of time since the industry is very saturated with it

Deep down I have realized specializing will really make my portfolio, knowledge and resume stronger. Plus Front-End is something I genuinely am drawn to and enjoy doing.

Would love to know your input on this.

Hello everyone hope you are all doing well.

I got laid off from my Full Stack Developer position mid Sept. It’s Dec, and I’m at 1700 applications. I only got 1 interview early Oct, nothing after. I couldn’t get a call back from a few companies paying 15/hr.

Positions I’m applying to: Web Developer, Full stack developer, Front End Developer, UI/UX designer (occasionally), Software engineer.

What I have been doing this time

1. Setting a day every Thursday of the week to improve something in my resume
2. I’m a foreign student so I don’t have the luxury to wait out, or work any other job than tech so I’ve been working on a project alongside applications.
3. Finishing Meta’s full stack certificate on coursera so I can be prepped up with the basics
4. Collaboration posts contributions on LinkedIn
5. Walkins at recruiter agencies
6. Using referrals still no luck
7. Messaging hiring managers and recruiters - no luck or response on that end to
8. Going an extra mile with cover letters
9. Redid my LinkedIn

I’d be curious to hear your opinions on how I can break out of that cycle.

I’ll attach my resume below for your reference and feel free to point out everything that I can change.

Link to my resume:

I don't know what to build. I'm looking for ideas. It doesn't matter the programming language or framework.

Thank you!

I identify as someone planning for motherhood (freezing eggs/embryos this year).

I want to just understand best way to balance motherhood with workload (when to leave a job / maternity leave and give advance notice to my direct report, skip manager/boss etc.)?

How do you balance expectations about coming back if you're still not ready to come back if you had things like postpartum depression or other issues?

I've been behind a couple times shipping tasks and projects, and I've gotten feedback that this is something I really need to get better at. One aspect to this is that I take a lot of iterations before I fully understand something - This extra time slows down the planning and overall execution of my work. How can I improve in that regard, and is there anything else I can do to get better at setting targets for my work?

Hi. Sorry for the long post.

My manager is quite happy with my performance as an IC, so in our 1:1s during feedback sessions, his suggestions for me are usually around increasing my influence within the team. Drive decisions, improve processes etc.

To add some context, Snap has a HUGE L4 band. Bigger than most companies (L5 at Snap is equivalent to E6 at Meta). This means we have a LOT of L4 engineers.

So right now I am in a situation where my team has 6 L4 engineers, ranging from 3 years of experience to 10 years of experience, with me falling towards the lower end of this range. To make matters worse, we also don't have a TL or Principal Engineer in the team. Which means we don't have a "guiding" engineer in the team to help "decide" on important technical decisions.

This has some consequences.

There's a big scope for "showing influence" in the team. Since we don't have a TL, every important decision is an opportunity to influence the team. And literally every L4 engineer is trying to jump on that ship. So we have this situation where people try to out-influence others (not sure if thats a word). This leads to lots of debates, lots of pointless meetings, and people eventually "fighting" over trying to be the decision makers for a decision.

A real example scenario: we recently had some discussions about improving our operational tickets backlog process, and literally every single L4 in the team wanted to write a doc on it to suggest improvements, to introduce a process to make the ticket backlog handling better, to show "influence" in the team.

I guess my question is, in a team like this, how should I try to build my influence ? I realize that everyone in the team is trying to achieve the same, so what can I do different. I know this is not a unique situation and very very common among more senior ICs, so hoping to pick their brains.

My ideal plan was to reach E5 (Senior Engineer) on my current team and then leave. But I am nowhere near promo currently. I’ve been on my current team for about 1.5 years now. I have to get promoted in about a year from now, or else I’ll be fired.

I need help deciding whether I should roll the dice and switch to another team. I’ve built some strong relationships on my current team, worked with my manager for over a year now and am fully ramped up to my current team’s stack. I’m not sure how to make the decision of whether to leave or to stay.

I am a software engineer with 3 years experience at a fintech company and I am on H1B visa with 33 months left. I recently got offers from Amazon L5 and Meta E4.

I am debating between two positions because I know Meta has an up or out policy. If I can’t get promoted after 33 months I will run out of my H1B time to switch job. With Amazon I can stay at L5 and potentially relocate to another company (supposed I dont get PIP). I see myself as a hard worker but I am not as fast at coding as others.

I like the work at Meta better but I am worried I can't survive there reading many comments that Meta moves much faster than Amazon.

I have the following questions and would greatly appreciate any guidance:

With Meta

1. How are the ratings Meet most, Meet all, Exceed Expectations decided at Meta ? Are they evaluated based on the 4 axes (Impact, Direction, Engineering Excellence and People)?

2. If I complete all projects within the timeframe I agree to , do I get MM, MA or EE ?

3. How does one get Meet Most ?

4. Does the obsession with “impact” and “metrics” at Meta lead to people competing for sexy projects only and avoid things that are harder to measure like Engineering Excellence (refactoring codebase) ?

5. For work that falls under the Engineering Excellence category, what are some tips to justify or measure their impact ?

6. Is it better to give conservative estimate for the projects I work on to meet the deadline so I can get Meet All ? Or doing this will put me at risk of not delivering enough work in each half ?

With Amazon,

1. How does one get PIPed ? Not completing as many tickets as others ? Not finishing the project they promise to deliver ?

My other concerns are

1. Green card: Meta labor market test failed 99%. Amazon paused PERM for the last 2 years so no data to compare but they said they will start PERM process (maybe batch PWD) for me 4/2025

I know it is not an offer evaluation platform but I would greatly appreciate any suggestions to guide my decision making process. Thank you

Hi all,

I joined my current company (known in our industry for not-so-good WLB) 6 months ago as a Senior Software Engineer and have been doing side hustle in the evening and weekends over past 6 months beside my main job. This means I still completed the 9am to 6pm work schedule before doing my side hustle.

Now my manager is saying I have low bug fix count and my team consists of some weekends workaholics which I suspect I’m being benchmarked against. My upcoming performance review is due end of December 2023 (1 month away). The expectation for my level is ramping up in 3 months which means the last 3 months are no longer considered ramp-up period.

What should I do in this last 1 month leading to the performance review? Should I go all in on the weekends too or should I keep the pace I’m working (I’ve started working in the evening from 7PM to 10PM since receiving this feedback 2-3 weeks ago but on weekends I still hustle). Was I wrong in doing side gigs / projects while ramping up for my full time job and should have instead pushed weekends to ramp up? What could have I done better in the past 6 months and moving forward in 1 month ahead?

I know Rahul talked about doing side contract gigs and Alex talked about doing side projects while both are still at Meta (a very demanding big tech company). How did you guys handle the pressure and what are your schedules like? (Wake up @ 4AM, work on side hustle till 6-7AM, then go to sleep at night around 12AM LOL)? I'm curious about how people organize their side gigs schedule.

Thank you for your advices. I really appreciate it.

Context:

I'm a mid-level engineer looking to grow to the senior level. I'm currently leading a team of 2 other engineers on a large migration project that's revamping a big part of our API architecture. This is a platform team so the biggest objective of this project is to make the lives of other engineers easier.

Questions:

(1) How can I measure and demonstrate the business impact of this project, given that it is aimed at internal teams?

(2) What metrics could I be using to quantify the technical impact of this project?

I'm currently an IC4, which is mid-level at Coinbase, and my goal now is to grow to IC5, which is Senior Software Engineer. I know on Taro that creating a growth plan is important, so I was wondering how exactly I could do that. Does it make sense to have a 2-year plan since that's a fast but still reasonable amount of time to make this jump?

I'm on a team with many new SDE 1s, and I'm trying to get them up to speed. However talking with all of them takes a lot of time, and it's affecting my velocity with project execution. My manager suggested that I set up office hours. Does that idea make sense and are there any other ways to make this all more efficient?

I'm at a medium size software company, but still sometimes I find it really hard to get promoted if I don't fight for or create a golden project in the org. With almost 5YOE approaching, I still find myself struggle to advance to next level in my role. People I worked directly on my project are both at least 2 levels above me, they're at Senior II or Staff eng level.

I am now in a really awkward situation where I don't know if I should just interview at other similar level company for senior position or change teams internally.

Often times, I find myself finishing stories assigned to me. However, I research only what is required for that task. This approach hasn’t helped me call myself an expert in it. And eventually I even forget what I had learnt. How do you approach a situation like this? It feels like I am doing tasks but not getting anywhere.