Rockstar Software Engineer Story: SW2 -> Principal In Just 4 Years

- An engineer joined Mixpanel as a level 2 Software Engineer, and received 4 promotions in 4 years to become a Principal Tech Lead Manager (TLM).
- Key to his success was the ability to make rapid progress on one of the company's top priorities: reduce infrastructure spend.
- He had a hypothesis that the majority of the cost incurred came from a few customers where the economics were backward for Mixpanel.
- Rather than solving a gnarly technical problem, the engineer worked with these customers to change their use of compute resources, resulting in massive savings for the company.

For more resources about becoming a rockstar engineer:

- ["What's the core insight behind quick growth?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/nJ762p255cGyuth36H6w/whats-the-core-insight-behind-quick-growth/)
- ["What's the difference between a low performer software engineer and a high performer?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/nMxx2EMVIlJbl1oK4SGu/whats-the-difference-between-a-low-performer-software-engineer-and-a-high-performer/)
- [Mentoring Junior SWEs \[E3\] to Senior \[E5\] In Just 2.5 Years At Meta](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/EX9563YnxcJb62cCmetg/case-study-mentoring-junior-swes-e3-to-senior-e5-in-just-25-years-at-meta/)

3 Mistakes Too Many Software Engineers Make (from a Director at Airbnb)

As Head of Search Engineering at Airbnb, [Rachel Zhao](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelzhao/) has coached + mentored many engineers as they climb the ladder. She calls out 3 things NOT to do for software engineers: 

1. **Don't work too hard (for an extended period)** - This leads to burnout, which hampers both your health and your growth. Rachel regularly spends time reflecting and figure out what new skill/project she can take on. You can learn more about the importance of reflection when it comes to productivity in [our video here](https://link.jointaro.com/dXkvKXs4FfbK5V6h7).
2. **Don't say "I'm not learning enough"** - At the end of the day, the company hired you to do a job - Growth is more of a 2nd order priority for many companies. This means that you need to be proactive about owning your growth - Don't just expect your manager to hand you the perfect curriculum of projects to get to the next level. For in-depth advice on how to create that scope for yourself to get to the next level, check out [this in-depth Q&A advice](https://link.jointaro.com/bah6v7RFpnywVYyv9).
3. **Don't focus on the score, focus on the game** - In particular, don't focus too much on level and viewing others as competitors. Think about how your org functions and how you can add the most impact. Check out our in-depth advice on [how to view levels when it comes to your career](https://link.jointaro.com/JJBA5KSCLdoK9Sc39).

I Sucked At This For 25 Years As An Engineer – 8 Tips For Communication

Communication is the skill that separates the best engineers from the mediocre ones. 

**Nothing great is built alone**, so even if you’re the best coder in the world, at some point in your career you will have to work with others. When you get to that point, communication is how you get things done. 

Here are 6 tactical communication tips for engineers (and there are two more in the video!)

**1. Learn how to say no. If your PM or manager comes to you with a request, don't just say no.**

Instead, say "not right now" and explain why you're choosing to do other high-priority work. This approach lets you acknowledge the request or the idea, but you’re able to firmly/politely say no by explaining why you want to stay the course. 

**2. Use tentative language**

Especially for critical feedback, leave room for discussion. One way this manifests is during code review: some of the best engineers at Meta actually ended their feedback with a question mark:

"Crash with negative input" ➡️ "Crash with negative input?" One character makes a big difference!

**3. Make people feel heard**

In 1:1s, I’ll literally say "Let me say that back to you" and repeat back what they said to me. This works magically well.

Even if you disagree, this strategy lets you start from a place of agreement -- the person was heard.

**4. Say thank you**

*Proper* thank yous are about more than sending a one-line message. A proper thank you involved thanking them in your launch post or sending them a thank you when you hit a milestone. That's how you build deep relationships.

**5. Advance the conversation**

This is a personal pet peeve for Rahul. If we're talking about where to get lunch, and I propose Indian food, don't just say "I don't like Indian." You need to propose some alternatives in that response. Also, google the ["no hello"](https://nohello.net/) philosophy.

**6. Know your audience**

Many engineers either provide too much or too little context. Communication is an exercise in empathy. You have to figure out what your audience cares about and deliver value to them.

Related links:
- [Taro's communication guide](https://www.jointaro.com/playlist/hVdLQQzfslaYarLSCmmy/)
- ["When should you offer to help a colleague?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/u4GMlmLOuaU4Olhh2XAy/when-should-you-offer-to-help-a-colleague/)

Why Most Companies Suck At Onboarding

You should not expect a good onboarding process at your company. Helping new employees ramp up is a good example of something that is *important but not urgent*. Tenured employees likely don't remember what it's like to be new.

While many companies will have insufficient or non-existent onboarding, the other end of the spectrum is also unfortunate: larger bureaucratic companies will have excessive onboarding, with months of training before you can do anything productive.

Even if the company has good intentions, building a solid onboarding plan is a hard problem: the tech industry's rate of change is very high, with people, tools, and technologies changing every year. Naturally, documentation and processes around onboarding become outdated.

Despite the difficulties, poor onboarding can be seen as an opportunity for new employees to have an immediate impact.

Getting To The Top 1% Of Amazon Engineers - Productivity Tips From A Life Engineered

Steve Huynh, from the popular channel A Life Engineered, talks about the 3 parts of his productivity system. After spending more than 17 years at Amazon and obtaining the coveted Principal Engineer title, Steve spends a lot of time thinking about peak productivity. 

Timestamps:
- 0:00 - Intro to Steve
- 0:40 - Why invest in a system for time management?
- 2:30 - Have a healthy relationship with notifications
- 6:02 - Optimize your schedule
- 9:00 - Optimize for impact (not comfort)
- 11:25 - How Steve organizes his time

Related questions:
- [When to check email to maximize productivity?
](https://www.jointaro.com/question/aBmMAXWqsQ8gYxyAJcpq/when-to-check-email-to-maximize-productivity/)
- [Is typing speed important as an engineer?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/JeBsvDeGQf01ritm98W0/is-typing-speed-important-and-what-speed-is-acceptable-for-a-dev-looking-to-work-at-faang/)
- [How do I estimate my sprint tasks better?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3R6yRStSzDMmvLRCiMVV/how-do-i-estimate-my-sprint-tasks-better/)

Connect with Steve: 
- [Taro](https://www.jointaro.com/profile/aZJL3ucq9dQnscO09F4JDRkgPo72/)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered)

How To Effectively Leverage Skip Level 1:1s

Your "skip" is the person that your manager reports to - It's what happens when you "skip" your manager when going up your reporting chain. 1 on 1 meetings with your skip are tricky as you can't talk to them the same way you would to your direct manager:

Here's how you can get maximum value from your skip 1 on 1s:
- **Understand your organization's overall strategy** - Since your skip is operating at a higher-altitude, they will be naturally well equipped to answer this question. Ask them what their priorities are, and you can then weave them into your own work to increase your impact.
- **Share "on the ground" insights** - Skips are generally pretty disconnected from nuts and bolts day-to-day work due to their seniority. As an IC, you are well-equipped to share what that experience is like as that's your life. This is really valuable, if you can come up with insights on how to improve this experience.
- **Be honest with feedback** - There's not much value sucking up to your skip and telling them that they're great and everything is going great because of that. Be candid and unafraid to share real problems with how the organization functions.

Related resources:
- ["How to make the most out of Director/VP/Exec office hours?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/GSihcOIzyP4sq5Gp1pWb/how-to-make-the-most-out-of-directorvpexec-office-hours/)
- ["Topics to talk in 1:1 with skip level manager?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/yK1UiPgm1EElzHRIqlM8/topics-to-talk-in-11-with-skip-level-manager/)
- ["What should I discuss in first 1:1 with my skip-level manager?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/WjBisBXMwLrSGO0mpR56/what-should-i-discuss-in-first-11-with-my-skip-level-manager/)

The Silent Killer Of Too Many Software Engineer Careers: Burnout

Burnout is a form of exhaustion caused by constantly feeling like you have too much to do. Most software engineers will encounter burnout at some point in their career. Four reasons you may hit burnout, and how to mitigate: 

1. **You can do your job anytime + anywhere.** Try to create some separation between work and home, or set deadlines for yourself. 
2. **Unlimited complexity.** A typical codebase will have too much complexity for one person to understand all of it. Instead, share with coworkers where you feel lost, and start small.
3. **Unclear roles.** There’s often ambiguity around things like handling support requests or maintenance. Try to create structure around this, and acknowledge that this work does exist. 
4. **Unclear communication.** For your work, over-communicate the bad news and refer to [this Taro session about communication](https://link.jointaro.com/6jdUd3ucPprEEVog6).

Here's Why You're Doing Interview Prep WRONG

Most people do very shallow interview prep that doesn't actually help them learn. Lists like Blind 75 and Leetcode 75 are not enough to truly master the technical interview for Big Tech companies. 

In this video, Daniel proposes the "proper" way to master the coding / DSA interview so that you can walk into interviews and feel more confident. There are no shortcuts and no memorization -- instead, it's about going beyond the solution for a problem, and then understanding the nuances and process to get the right answer.

- Connect with Daniel on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko/)
- Checkout Formation as part of [Taro Perks](https://www.jointaro.com/perks/)

Relevant Taro content: 
- [Effectively Learning Data Structures And Algorithms (DSA)](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/XwpMMY3ss97zOrXJQ7Xr/effectively-learning-data-structures-and-algorithms-dsa/)
- [Struggling With DSA? Don't Worry, That's Healthy!](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/SPWYdMAu5XQX8ds9MxXc/struggling-with-dsa-dont-worry-thats-healthy/)
- [Masterclass on DSA interviews](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/V4sTACzfOh22nMVcUV3w/how-to-ace-your-big-tech-interview-data-structures-and-algorithms-7172021/)

Amazon VP Shares Why Reorgs Happen And Why The True Reason Is ALWAYS Hidden

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who has gone through dozens of re-orgs across his tech career. 

Re-orgs (reorganizations of the team structure) happen because at least one leader views something as broken: someone is under-performing, the right teams aren't collaborating, or some other reason which you may not have visibility into as an engineer. 

Once a re-org happens, an effective way to build trust is to schedule time with your new skip level manager and ask what the mission of the team is, and if your work is still aligned to that mission. Ask your manager to setup a meeting if you can't do it on your own. 

Communication challenges: Public announcements about such org changes often use vague language and corporate jargon, making it difficult for individual contributors to understand the true reasons behind them. This lack of transparency can lead to further confusion and distrust.

Legal considerations: Legal constraints limit how much information leaders can publicly disclose about personnel changes. Fear of lawsuits can lead to sanitized messages that obfuscate the real reasons behind decisions.

**More to explore:**

- [**\[Masterclass\] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/2PbJb2fuqF3iMHy57eEg/masterclass-how-to-work-better-with-your-engineering-manager/)
- [How To Effectively Leverage Skip Level 1:1s](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/TToehFEc738PBhJcALwL/how-to-effectively-leverage-skip-level-11s/)
- [**Ask Me Anything (AMA) with a Disney Eng Director - Greg Benson**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/eHbg5nVkHn2LYJ55oOVf/ask-me-anything-ama-with-a-disney-eng-director-greg-benson/)

English Communication Is The Most Important Skill For Immigrant Engineers

The field of engineering is filled with immigrants. Silicon Valley is famously built from the creativity and hard work of immigrants around the world (China, India, Israel, and much more).

If English is your 2nd (or 3rd) language, only or mostly speaking your native language at work will hold back your career. Rachel talks about her misconception that communication skills weren't that important, and how to improve your speaking + writing.

If you want to get better at communication, check out our course: [\[Course\] Clear Communication For Software Engineers](https://www.jointaro.com/course/clear-communication-for-software-engineers/)

This thread is helpful too: ["How to improve my communication?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/omak9oOT4NJE9dhKeMZi/how-to-improve-my-communication/)

Figuring Out The Best Company To Join As A Software Engineer

- **Follow The Talent You Know**
  - One of the best things about the tech industry is how full it is of extremely talented people, and you probably know some of them. In particular focus on those who are both talented and have a strong degree of integrity.
  - For the people you truly respect in your network, you should seriously consider the companies they go to as options. After all, if a company met the bar of these great people, it's probably pretty good!
- **Understand A Company's Strengths And Match Against Them**
  - Different companies have different core cultural values, and it's really important for your values and theirs to align. When this alignment isn't there, it's far too easy to go somewhere, work very hard, and not achieve much impact or career growth.
  - Examples: Amazon's leadership principles, Netflix's emphasis on freedom and responsibility
  - To find out what the culture is like at other companies, consult your network and [ask within the Taro Premium community](https://www.jointaro.com/membership/)!

Related resources:

- [\[Masterclass\] 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/)
- ["What's the best way to think about a team switch?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/NwXACx0n3JniBETi3f1E/whats-the-best-way-to-think-about-a-team-switch/)
- ["What questions can I ask a potential new team?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/dLS6KcDwKNdMDlJwYdBw/what-questions-can-i-ask-a-potential-new-team/)

How The Top 1% Of Engineers Are Judged

As a former VP of Engineering at Amazon, Ethan has the unique ability to share how the senior-most engineers were evaluated within Big Tech. These are the top few percent of engineers in the company (Staff Engineers, Principal Engineers, Distinguished Engineers, etc), and the expectations are incredibly high.

**Key insights:**

- **At very senior levels, technical excellence is table stakes.** The top-performing engineers use their technical expertise to help the business. 
- **The dynamic with company leadership is important**: these engineers must be proactive in helping the business, and not simply the "guru on the hill" who provides answers when asked.
- **There are different modalities to get to a very senior level**, e.g. CTO model, technical expert, product engineer, and others. It's ok if you don't want daily meetings with company leadership, but you must be working on a valuable enough problem that can merit an engineer of that seniority.
- **Finding a good manager is critical for both ICs and managers**. Two ways to evaluate this are (1) find a leader who has grown many people and (2) find a leader who is advancing rapidly in their career.

[**Ethan Evans**](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanevansvp/) is a retired Amazon VP who now teaches managers how to break into executive levels. He was at Amazon for 15 years, and he became a VP in 2013 until he left in 2020. Ethan shares valuable insights for anyone interested in management or career development.

**Helpful links:**

- [**\[Masterclass\] How To Work Better With Your Engineering Manager**](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/2PbJb2fuqF3iMHy57eEg/masterclass-how-to-work-better-with-your-engineering-manager/)
- Rahul's Senior to Staff course: <https://maven.com/taro/senior-to-staff>
- More from Ethan: <https://www.jointaro.com/topic/ethan-evans/>
- [Rahul's $800K TC journey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inydj1VZ0y0)

Why It Doesn’t Make Sense To Have a 5 Year Career Plan

Most productivity advice is about getting as much done as possible in the short term: *how do you optimize this week or this particular project*? How does productivity and time management fit into longer term career plans? How much time should be spent around planning your career years from now?

The answer is, **not very much**. Too much will change in 5 years to build your life around that: your experiences and attitudes may change, and the world will certainly change. 

Instead of working backward from the perfect job or career in the long term, it’s better to start with your desired lifestyle. 
- Where do you want to live? 
How much money do you need to make? 
- How busy will you be? 

It’s worth reflecting on what your desired lifestyle is, and check-in periodically to evalute if your goals have changed.

However, this is very different from setting goals. **A good goal is SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound**. If you have a goal which is more than a year away, it’s worth breaking it down into something which can be relevant and time-bound.

When you have established a goal of the proper time duration, you should spend 5-10% of the time in planning how you’ll execute on the project. For example, if you’re planning a project which will likely take 100 hours of work, spend 5-10 hours (a few days of work) in doing the planning behind it. 

Connect with Steve: 
- [Taro](https://www.jointaro.com/profile/aZJL3ucq9dQnscO09F4JDRkgPo72/)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered)

This Is Why FAANG Engineers Make So Much Money - Tech Compensation Breakdown

Learn about the 4 components of compensation:

1. Base salary
2. Sign-on bonus
3. Performance bonus
4. Equity

The latter two are less understood, and they are key to understanding why compensation at tier 1 tech companies is so high.

And we also talk about how Mark Zuckerberg actually had a pretty big impact on increasing tech compensation as a whole!

[The Insider's Guide To Negotiating Your Tech Salary And Compensation](https://www.jointaro.com/course/the-insiders-guide-to-negotiating-your-tech-salary-and-compensation/)

Every Senior+ Engineer Must Decide: IC vs Management Track

There is one good motivation to become an engineering people manager: to help people. If that's not the priority, you should not become an EM (and you should avoid working with those types of managers).

Daniel toggled between individual contributor (IC) and manager several times in his career. His most fruitful experience was as a very senior IC engineer at Meta -- he had the influence + context of a manager, but none of the headache associated with the job. 

Connect with Daniel on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko/)

Related content: 
- [Questions You Can Ask To Evaluate An Engineering Manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/VOQc7vIzQ4STtw7UrB29/questions-you-can-ask-to-evaluate-an-engineering-manager/)
- [How Do Effective Engineering Leaders Help Their Teams Achieve More?](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/xGJDCG7VL4hcZaq5XL92/how-do-effective-engineering-leaders-help-their-teams-achieve-more/)

[Case Study] How Engineers Unlock Huge Impact With Artificial Intelligence (AI)

This was a joint presentation from engineers who have been using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to become significantly more productive. The result is fewer repetitive tasks, fewer bugs, and more impact. The AI transformation is not some future technology that we are anticipating -- **it's happening now**. ChatGPT is the fastest application ever to reach 100M monthly active users.

We can broadly categorize AI tools into 2 buckets (generative vs analysis). Think about what is most helpful for your job and dig into other tools in that domain.

We focus primarily on productivity benefits from conversational agents like ChatGPT, Bard, and Anthropic. **The first response is usually generic and unhelpful, but simple tricks can make the output significantly more valuable**. Sample prompts: *"How can I send a text message in a Rails app with Twilio?"* and *"How can I show a div in the screen after 15 seconds of inactivity on a webpage?"*

Top 5 prompt engineering tips for Software Engineers: 
1. Ask ChatGPT to list its steps, work, or sources
2. Split your prompt into clear sections
3. Use “unique”, “unconventional”, and “creative” to get better responses
4. Make ChatGPT roleplay
5. Give ChatGPT examples of correct inputs and outputs

Some sample prompts from Jordan's [summary doc](https://www.notion.so/jordancutler/GPT-prompts-90179f5fc49440c6bffaeb94e5cfcb4c?pvs=4): 
- **[Feedback]** "Tell me 5 reasons this feature won’t work as intended"
- **[Engineering]** "Given the following code, write a comprehensive test suite in X testing library"
- **[Learning]** "Explain { topic } as if I am a principal software engineer with 10+ years of experience. Go into deep technical detail and explain how it works under the hood"
- **[Meetings]** "I’m a junior software engineer at a Series A tech company. Can you come up with 10 topics for me to talk with my manager about in our 1-1?"

Here are the top paid tools that the speakers use: 
- [Github Copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot) - $10/month
- [ChatGPT Plus](https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plus) - $20/month
- [Notion AI](https://www.notion.so/product/ai) - $10/month

Speakers:
- [Donn Felker](https://twitter.com/donnfelker)
- [Jordan Cutler](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordancutler1/)
- [Mike Alnakhaleh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/malik-mike-a-32b63818b/)

Related resources on Taro:
- ["How to AI proof your career?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/3xg5SvXnyTQ0mhNLfbK1/how-to-ai-proof-your-career/)
- ["Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in side projects?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/20UiCYH3QwkWkvGTrFsY/using-artificial-intelligence-ai-in-side-projects/)
- ["ChatGPT plugins to your IDE - How to prepare?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/ZqQiiaPjpzYQ8XKPOQZK/chatgpt-plugins-to-your-ide-how-to-prepare/)
- [The slides for this presentation](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1lfMP8qlSix6IDNAUbyraamLgtIHwkxbbQgbpgcBqr2c/edit?usp=sharing)

What Gets Communicated Gets Done: Why Slack Sucks

When Should You Switch Teams Or Companies? - Daniel Tomko's Perspective

Daniel Tomko spent much longer at the companies in his career compared to most engineers: 11 years at Microsoft and 8 years at Meta. Within these companies, Daniel did various team changes.

- Switching companies has a higher "transaction cost" compared to switching teams.
- At a large enough company, you have tons of interesting technical challenges and people to work with.

Connect with Daniel Tomko on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko/)

Other relevant resources: 
- [How to approach a team switch conversation with my manager?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/XFQqRINGf9JvW3xmnVHa/whats-the-best-way-to-approach-a-team-switching-conversation-with-my-manager/)
- [How To Figure Out If A Team Is Important To A Company](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/9OwPRwFFSMvEoVj6Zt5Q/how-to-figure-out-if-a-team-is-important-to-a-company/)
- [How To Find A Good Team With Career Growth Opportunities](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/UGIUC9zaGccK0tOarBri/how-to-find-a-good-team-with-career-growth-opportunities/)
- [What's it like working on an ads team?](https://www.jointaro.com/question/GCCIkaBVUpPxGCF4MjRL/what-is-it-like-working-on-ads-teams/)

A Framework For Integrating AI Into Your Workflow

> **AI will not replace you. A person using AI will.**

This [tweet](https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1610984481342771200) was seen 5M times because it captures a transformation that will happen in the workplace over the next 5 years.

This video covers a practical framework to apply AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, or Github Copilot to become more productive in your job.

The goal for many of us is to become the mythical **10x engineer** – they have 10x as much impact as their peers. These engineers do exist, but they don’t write 10x more code or fix 10x more bugs. Instead, they understand the concept of leverage, which manifests in two ways.

- Take a challenging problem, and solve it in a 10x or 100x better way
- Make 10 or 100 people around you more productive

Shreyas Doshi has a [framework called LNO](https://www.aakashg.com/2022/02/01/lno-framework-for-product-managers/) to identify where you should spend your effort:

- *Leverage (L)* tasks are tasks that have huge consequences and you should do a great job.
- *Neutral (N)* tasks are tasks that are important, but don't have a big payoff. You should do a good job.
- *Overhead (O)* tasks are tasks that are a tax on your time. You should just get it done.

Let's go through an example in each bucket:

In the **leverage** bucket is creating the design or architecture for the project. This is high leverage not only because architecture is inherently difficult to change, but it’s also an important trust-building exercise.

- Ask AI to identify what could go wrong with your general approach and then add that as a discussion.
- Ask AI to summarize documents related to what you’re trying to build
- Ask AI to solve the problem and then sanity-check. The results here won’t always be good, but at least you should be able to explain why you’re choosing one path over the other.

Some coding tasks are in the **neutral** bucket. AI gives us the opportunity to dramatically speed up how long some coding tasks take.

- Use tools like Copilot to write boilerplate code much faster
- Instead of having to go to StackOverflow, you can get answers inline
- Ask for things like regexes or how to do something in idiomatic Kotlin

Finally, there are tasks in the **overhead** category that AI can help minimize

- The classic example is writing your performance review – you’re not actually having any business impact.
- I recommend every engineer has a [brag document](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/QVqPkuCvplbHSqBWtKJX/make-your-promotion-case-easy-keep-a-brag-journal/) of what they did throughout the half or year. Then you need to massage all your work into whatever template your company uses.

With the rise of AI, asking good questions is more important than ever. Artificial Intelligence cannot read your mind (at least not yet 😅), so the quality of your question dictates the quality of your response. Learn more about asking good questions with our course: [\[Course\] Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)

Why Your Manager Sucks, And What You Can Do As A Software Engineer

The Framework Through Which To Evaluate Engineering Productivity

When you reflect on your day or week, two spectrums through which to evaluate how your time was spent: 

1. How much of your time was spent **reactively vs proactively**?
2. How much of your time was spent **consuming vs creating**? 

The most productive engineers (and the most senior engineers) are very proactive, and they also lean heavily on the creating end of the spectrum. That means you should spend less time passively attending meetings, and more time breaking down projects, writing code, and setting direction for your team.

It’s much harder to create content compared to consuming content. But the majority of impact as an individual or business comes from creation. As a result, the world rewards the people who are able to create high quality video/code/writing over a long period of time.

- [Reactive vs proactive as a manager](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/VCSrWjEBu3WCaSWCn2ak/signs-of-a-bad-engineering-manager-reactive-vs-proactive/)
- [A hack to supercharge your learning when you create - the Lego Model](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/9cVK5zsAQstbTCc1wrWx/how-the-best-software-engineers-learn-the-lego-model/)

Connect with Steve: 
- [Taro](https://www.jointaro.com/profile/aZJL3ucq9dQnscO09F4JDRkgPo72/)
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@ALifeEngineered)

Why Chasing Promotion Could Hurt You

Daniel has never gunned for a promotion when choosing teams or projects. In fact, he's actively turned down promotions he was offered at Microsoft and Meta (Philip Su famously down-leveled himself at Meta so he was no longer a Director). 

Here's why chasing a promotion could end up causing more stress and end up hurting your career in the long run. 

- Connect with Daniel Tomko on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieltomko/)
- Videos from [Philip Su](https://www.jointaro.com/tagname/Philip%20Su/)

Related video: 
- [Taro Premium Session: Mentoring Meta Engineers From E3 -> E5](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/EX9563YnxcJb62cCmetg/session-5-mentoring-junior-swes-e3-to-senior-e5-in-just-25-years-at-meta/)
- [Rockstar Software Engineer Story: SW2 -> Principal In Just 4 Years](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/Lvf1TDKt1R4ZJSCr9BVv/rockstar-software-engineer-story-sw2-greater-principal-in-just-4-years/)
- ["Is there something as growing too quickly?"](https://www.jointaro.com/question/o9oyCcIjWT4Xa6w1Eau5/is-there-something-as-growing-too-quickly/)

The Breakdown Of A Good Technical Question

Asking effective technical questions: 
- **Intention**: What is your high level goal?
- **Expectation**: What do you expect to happen? 
- **Mismatch**: What is actually happening?
- **Investigation**: What have you tried?

If you're interested in learning Android, check out the tutorial Rahul references:  [Tip Calculator - Build Your First Android App](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7NYbSE8uaBCMVBVg6cskGzdYguj3CUP-)

[Case Study] Building An Engineering Brand - Why And How (LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Substack)

Most of Taro's success has come from the social presence of Rahul and Alex. For Rahul, his follower counts as of April 2023 are **75K on YouTube, 61K on LinkedIn, and 13K on Twitter**. Followers are an imperfect measurement of influence, but they are generally correlated. 

### Why invest in brand building?

- Be helpful for others
- Helps you learn more
- Increase your luck surface area
  - Inbound instead of outbound
  - Connect with other creators
  - Compounding value over time

Brand building is definitely *NOT* required to be a good engineer, but it will become more valuable over time.

### Which platform should I invest in?

The options I recommend are **LinkedIn** and **YouTube**. You should pick a platform with built-in distribution. That means a blog is almost always a bad idea (Substack is a bit different since it does have some distribution methods). 

Another dimension to think about is the competition on that platform -- how hard is it to get noticed? 
- Which audience are you trying to reach? (B2B vs B2C, students or professionals)
- How much effort is required to produce content? Videos are much more work than essays, which are much more work than tweets.

You can also take a bet here on a growing platform like TikTok, but there are risks around what kind of content is valued, and the longevity of the platform.

### Getting started as a creator

- Keep in mind the **spotlight effect**: "The psychological phenomenon by which people tend to believe they are being noticed more than they really are"
- Since no one really cares about you when you start out, you should focus on quantity over quality. Just make a lot of content, get feedback, and keep improving. 
- Focus on having your content actually add value. Just reposting articles, or making a list of 20 news articles is not that interesting. (It may get engagement, but you're not actually building a brand.)

### Aim for virality

A significant amount of my growth on LinkedIn came from 3 viral posts: [1](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rpandey1234_learntocode-softwareengineer-activity-7052287566544306177-sn9R/), [2](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rpandey1234_softwareengineering-compensation-licreatoraccelerator-activity-6989278004149465088-V-IF/), [3](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6917123048710000640/) 

Some of your content will be "conversion" content, designed to get people to take action such as signing up for an email newsletter. These posts won't do as well, but you should also focus on having "distribution" content, which is the type of thing that can go viral. 

Once you have a viral hit, you can also repurpose the content on other platforms in order to maximize the value from it. That's what Rahul did with the "Learn To Code" video that he initially published on YouTube: 
- [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awB99NJ2G38)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rpandey1234_learntocode-softwareengineer-activity-7052287566544306177-sn9R/)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/rpandey1234/status/1646060396082790400)

### Practical tips
- Post content deliberately about one domain, e.g. engineering growth. Don't jump between topics. 
   - This is how you build a brand. 
   - Make it clear what value you provide, “e.g. the Car Dealership Guy” or “The No-Code Lady”
- Use content scheduling features to be consistent with posting
- Look up resources on copywriting
   - Start with a number
   - Nail the hook, e.g. *"Let me be clear."*
   - Tell a story: Instead of "A happened and then B happened", say "A happened, but X, so then B happened"

-------------

This is a recording of a Taro Premium session from April 20, 2023. See other discussions about [content creation on Taro.](https://www.jointaro.com/topic/content-creation/)

[What to be careful about when starting a blog or LinkedIn audience.](https://www.jointaro.com/question/O5qwwCqT6SAsWSNqlD2V/making-content-as-a-software-engineer-what-to-look-out-for/)

Rahul Pandey Q&A and Videos

About Rahul Pandey