Senior Engineer Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

Context

I have secured a job offer as a Tech Lead at Zepto - a series F startup based out of India.

The company is operating in quick commerce space which is like e-commerce in 10 minutes using Demand Prediction and Dark Stores in a certain region.

Career Aspirations

I have aspirations for career growth as an IC and the HR were rolling out offer for Staff as well, but stuck with Lead Software Engineer for now, so as to establish myself better first and then move towards staff role.

The Hiring Manager mentioned that it is possible to quickly progress to staff role in 4-5 months, which is a pure IC based role while Lead Software Engineer involved some level of team task prioritisation/planning etc. also

I had been trying to move ahead to Lead Software Engineer position in my previous company for a lot of years and did not get enough support.

Thus, I am really grateful to this offer and just want to give my best.

Would love any hear your thoughts on how to succeed as a Tech Lead.

Introductory call with CTO

With the context setup, The introductory calls are being scheduled now each coming week.

The first call being with the Company CTO.

I want to be able to have good learning and career growth at the company.

What are some of the questions I can ask as a to be Tech Lead at Zepto so as to make the best use of my call with him?

I was thinking about the following:

• What are some of the focus areas for us at Zepto in 2024?
• Does this translate to some high level focus areas for engineering teams? - such as building abstractions or a platform using which we can enable business better?
• Are there some technical hindrances that are being faced to achieve the focus areas for the business? or What could be some reasons to not be able to achieve above focus areas? And how are we planning to preempt them?
• Are there some areas of improvement you are seeing from an operational perspective in Tech & Product teams? Are we doing anything towards that?

Would love to hear your thoughts on the above. And hear more about the things I can discuss in the call.

My goal is to succeed as a Tech Lead for my team at Zepto, contribute as much as I can in terms of impact and learn from the experience.

References in comments due to character limit

I'm an E5 mobile engineer at a Big Tech company. Due to lots of manager attrition, I currently report to a hands-off Director with too many reports to have regular 1:1s. I found an awesome EM who agreed to let me join his team and promised me E6-scope projects on his team. My Director is his skip-level, so I'm staying in the same org.

However, before I could make the official team switch, my TPM loaned me to another team lacking mobile resources to meet the TPM's own OKR. He did not bother talking to the awesome EM or me beforehand. My scope on the TPM's project is E5 at most. Now that project is dragging on. It's already code complete, but they want to keep me on that project until it's fully rolled out. We're waiting for mobile adoption to reach a certain threshold before we can do a force upgrade. Due to the code chill around the upcoming holidays, we likely can't do the force upgrade until next year. In the meantime, the project's EM is asking me to investigate pre-existing bugs in their feature. The awesome EM met with the TPM and that project's EM to fast-track my transfer, explaining that he needs me for Q1 planning & our team's own OKRs, but the latter two insisted that I need to support their project until it's completely done, which includes the force upgrade. Am I stuck on this project until January next year or is there a way to switch teams more quickly?

I've recently joined a new company, and I got up-levelled to be a senior swe through the interview process. This would be my first senior engineering role at a large tech company (where tech is a profit center) relative to some of my other experiences.

• What mindset shifts do I need to have?
• How do I go about creating impact?

While leading a project/initiative, the engineer is not inclined listen to the entire context and just cares about what they need to implement, yet gives out a vibe that they are the highest contributor to the project and dismisses most things I say. Seems like they are perpetually in a rush and keep cutting me off. They are good at grasping and implementing if a very clear direction is given, although it feels like spoon feeding at times. They are very quick to re-assign the task back to me by saying "Can you do xyz?", when they were supposed to do "abc", which needs "xyz" to be figured out. As soon as they can't figure out anything very easily, they assign part task back over text! They are fairly less independent in implementing the task. Although, I am very confident that they do have the ability to be independent, they don't flex those muscles.

I don't think anyone else on the team has problem particularly, although I heard light-hearted conversations where other teammates feel like they overload them with several code reviews at once and follows up too closely by pinging them constantly if there is something they need from others. Overall, the team is very supportive and gives shout-out to them when they implement the task successfully even if that means they were being given very specific direction by for the task completion.

I am hesitant to bring up with manager, as it may be reflect that I am lacking capability to handle the situation and manager may kind of laugh it off. It's been a bit frustrating to be honest, but I want to regulate my feelings and handle this in a controlled manner.

I’m currently a relatively new senior engineer at Pinterest trying to get to staff engineer. The area where I need the most help is the direction axis of the next level. How can I meaningfully shape the vision for a decent project?

While working on the current story, one should also figure out what he has to do for the next story. Is this good advice? I am skeptical and I would have asked about priorioties of the task given to my manager but at this point it seems pointless to reason things with him that's why asking it here.

I recently started a new job as the most senior engineer in my tech stack.

In my second month I was given complex tasks which are mix of implementing a missing feature and evaluating option available to solve very niche set of problems. These are all problems in the domain of openGl and low level graphics programming language, which I have zero experience. So most of time is going to reading and understanding the space.There are no other engineers who are expert in the space either however they have done some work.

My concern is this kind of work does not have a tangible results which could hinder the probation evaluation. I am struggling with giving updates as I am spending lot of time just to understand what needs to be done and for how part I need to learn a low level graphics language which will take lot of time.

I already raised it with my manager once but he did not seem to understand yet. how can I raise it again and raise my concern. Also show some progress In my work, even struggling to give standup updates at times since domain is very vast.

I ran into this issue a few times so far:

1. I need to solve a problem.
2. 2 senior people (could be engineers or managers) tell me to use different solutions.
3. They do not talk to each other directly.

I'm the middleman, bouncing back and forth between solutions. Getting blocked at the PR level (sometimes before that too) by either stake holders.

It's demotivating, I do not get things done quick.

What should I do?

I am currently deciding whom to ask for feedback for my performance reviews (due in a couple of weeks). We are usually asked to give 2-3 names. I am trying to choose among the following: a TPM (he oversees most of the projects I have worked on and I have a good rapport with him), a staff scientist (he led a project in which I delivered a key result), a senior staff scientist (I worked with him recently in a project and I helped him with a quick task) and the Director of the GTM team (I worked with her nearly a year ago. I got good feedback from her earlier and I continue to work with her team).

Does it make sense to ask someone with whom you have worked with nearly a year back but are sure to give you a highly positive feedback compared to someone with whom you have worked with recently but might not be strongly positive? Also, are there any general strategies to follow in terms of seniority of the reviewers, how frequently you have worked with them, etc?

I have been working on Salesforce technology for the past 10 years. I am interested to change my tech stack from salesforce to backend technology (Java based) and perform as a backend software engineer.

How practical is it to plan for a transition, given that I have spent a decade in current technology? Also if it sounds practical, how should I plan for it.

Best Regards.

Recently I was watching Alex's , and to get promoted to the next level, it was essentially about acquiring an N+1 behaviour set.

That got me thinking, instead of N+1, why don't I observe and emulate an N+X behaviour, so that I can get promoted to N+X level?

If a Junior Engineer emulates a Staff Engineer behaviour set, won't he be promoted to Staff level at a rapid rate? (A Quadruple Promotion)

Taking this example to the extreme, if an engineer in Meta emulates the behaviour set of Boz, won't he be promoted to CTO?

Why or why not?

I'm fortunate to have someone who will refer me for whatever role I want at Amazon.

The problem is there are tons of very different teams and I can't tell which teams are growing or impactful. My intuition is mixed: Products drive revenue, so product teams should be the most impactful right? Quite easily not so as tooling teams can also scale massive impact at companies like these.

The first step I took is to reach out to my contacts at the company. I have multiple, but none of them seem to have a strong opinion, often indicating their own limited view across the company.

How should I think about this? Is there public data I can tap, or should I just get in wherever and transfer later?

Hey Folks,

I have the famous question here : Big tech -> startup : Should I do it?

Context:

I have a pretty toxic leadership. I have even got offers internally, but the leadership played political and I didn't end up switching teams. Also to note, I was told that I have been given "meets most" or the lowest rating a person can get.

This was a pretty horrible, as I was in exceeds in my mid year. I am not sure why they are being nasty.

And rumor is that they will be letting folks with this rating go this month. ( All on blind, and some managers from other teams also confirmed, but I have not been given a last day yet)

Given this a context, I just want to see if I should take up a startup offer.

I have 10+ YOE, and I see that I am not getting as many calls as I used to just 2 years back. And the interviews are much more random. This makes me concerned.

I am not on visa. But moving from big tech -> start up is a huge paycut.

What do you suggest I do?

I am hitting the point in my career where I am responsible for designing newer systems to handle more novel problems. I will use my last project as an example.

I had to redesign our game engine to handle more complex scenarios. I decided to "eat the frog" and come up with a few very complex game interactions to test if any of our designs would satisfy those test cases. After about 1 month of development, we landed on a design. This design also passed all the test cases for our old engine.

I think back and wonder if I could've done it more incrementally. We didn't really ship anything during that time, just tested out different ideas in our feature branches. There are still some outstanding questions for that project that are as low level as "should we use an abstract base class or an interface for this abstraction" to "here's an even more complex interaction we don't know how to handle, but could feasibly happen".

Now I am designing a new animation pipeline and don't want to get stuck in the same 1 month long marathon with only a design doc to show for it. As a newer senior engineer and lead, a solid design doc seems like a win, but it was a tough month.

In one way, this is different than having all the work known and chunking it out. We aren't sure what we'd come up with. Maybe that's the nature of R&D. On the other hand, work is work, and I'm sure there are methodologies for making more consistent progress even in R&D.

Interested in how other people approach this dilemma. I think the crux of the issue is I wasn't sure our design would work until we built and tested it against the test cases, and I have a nagging feeling we got a little lucky.

My manager suggested I add a weekly "Wins" section to our 1:1 doc. What's worth highlighting there? Is it better to only highlight things that meet the E6 bar? Or should I put everything I could think of, including mundane things like connecting peers with solutions or creating Gantt charts? Should I limit how many wins I highlight each week? How should I organize these wins?

So, a new situation has come up at work. My lead let me know today that he/she is going on a parental leave around October last week. I did ask them to let me know if I need to step up and need to prepare anything before they leave.

Question is How do I handle this situation and work with my directors to get prepared for it. I don't feel prepared to replace them for the next 3 -4 months nor I think I'm expected to do that but the question here is how can I proactively reach out, prepare and help the team in this situation.

Recently, due to health concerns, I consulted a doctor who advised me to take a medical leave for about 4 to 6 weeks, depending on my recovery. As I write this in January, my manager rates my performance at 3 or 4 out of 5. Having worked diligently throughout the year, I am eager to achieve a rating of 4, which will be finalized in August, though typically decisions are made by April.

However, I question the wisdom of deferring my health needs for the sake of a rating, especially since the financial and promotional benefits are not significant. Additionally, I have been contemplating a move to a FAANG or similar company for a better role and salary.

Despite the uncertain job market, I don't want to jeopardize my current position. There are also personal matters I need to address during my medical leave.

I'm seeking advice on how to balance pursuing a favorable performance rating with taking my medical leave, possibly in February. Is there a strategy to achieve both objectives?

what I am leaning towards is prioritizing health & starting the medical process by February. If a company penalizes me by giving me a sh*t rating for taking care of my health, then it’s not a good fit. I haven’t taken a long vacation > than 4 days in 2 years.

I've been working as a software developer in federal government for the last 5 years with the last 2 being primarily within an innovation division.

Over those years I solo developed many internal projects; initially during downtime/upskilling time and later on doing it fulltime.

Each one of these I believe could of had a profound impact on internal processes and ways of working which would then have a positive knock-on effect to the general public.

However these projects never saw a big enough audience that could have that sort of positive impact.

No matter how much the users or executive would love the product/s - the endorsement would only ever go as far as a good CV piece or getting to work on what I wanted.

From what I've heard this is different in big tech. (ala Paul Buchheit w/ gmail)

But is it really like that and if so, how can you encourage institutions that are not known for risk taking and innovation to change?

Context can be found below:

I am a 32-year-old engineer with 7 years of experience. For the past 5 years, I've been working at a startup that is around 10-12 years old and recently went public, serving as a mid-level backend engineer.

Despite my time at the company, I haven't seen much career growth. I received my first promotion after a year and a half, but nothing significant has happened since then. I'm feeling lost and unsure about my next steps. The work is unmotivating, and I feel like I'm not learning or growing. I'm constantly occupied with production issues, and my manager frequently cancels 1:1 meetings. Even though I receive positive feedback, I know I'm not fully utilizing my potential, which is troubling as my years of experience increase without meaningful progress.

Currently, I'm extremely demotivated and struggle to find the drive to work each day. I wake up feeling stuck and unhappy with my job. Although I get my monthly salary and perform my duties, I'm no longer passionate about my work. I have the knowledge and skills, but I just don't feel like contributing to this company anymore.

Can you help? I'm not happy with my current situation. I used to be a curious person, staying up all night coding and learning new things. However, for the past two years, I've been merely going through the motions at work. I want to regain my curiosity and sense of empowerment, so that when I go to bed each night, I feel excited about what I can achieve the next day.

Does anyone have a suggested study schedule/plan for someone with a current 9-5 full time job? I really want to leave my job and I’m not sure when I should schedule interviews at companies I really want to work at. Like realistically when would I be confident to try interviewing with a higher chance of passing?

For example: If an organisation does not value quality code but no. of features shipped, I feel it would eventually face difficulty in adding new features. Thoughts?

I recently joined a team of 20 people split across traditional software development, support personnel, storage engineering, security engineering and more and we're essentially supposed to sysadmin a large number of systems working ~70 hr weeks. The old team we're replacing did not handle well in this environment and it seems like my team needs to focus more so the storage engineers solve storage engineering problems, coders do coding etc so we can bail each other out of this hole faster. Any thoughts on how we can go about this? I'm working ~50hr weeks max and still perplexed at how these 70 hr weeks happen.

I am a Quality & Automation Engineering manager at my current company. I would like to know the career path forward from this role and how can I prepare for this?

Previously was an entrepreneur, I find it difficult to work with other people if it's not my project (lack of ownership) and people telling me what to do controlling my hours, even if that is the case of a manager.

As background I used to work for a company for over 80+ hours a week thinking 100 wouldn't be enough, I crashed and burned and swore I would never do it again (this happened for over a year). I previously founded a company where I was overworking (mentally), and it was not about the hours, but far too many things. I've worked really hard on setting boundaries with those coming to me (clients as a consultant) over the years and it has been a challenge.

Now that I am interviewing at FAANGMULA, I am curious how other folks that identify as neurodivergent (ADHD, AuDHD, Autistic) etc. find safe workplaces where they can not overwork themselves, burn out or work too many hours per week?

I know I am prone to doing this, even if I have learned how to push back boundary wise and I have also learned that other neurotypical people (people who do not identify as neurodivergent) are able to work less hours (less than 40 hours per week) and still be able to function with good "work-life balance," (the Holy Grail). I also have often met lots of tech startup founders/entrepreneurs/investors who also identify as ADHD (or other things like bipolar, other ND comorbidities) that say they can work for someone else, some choose not to, and some absolutely cannot.

What advice do folks have for those that are thinking about working somewhere full time, but not necessarily working over 40+ hours a week (like 60 was my regular workload) and carve out personal time for things they want to work on more (like a startup on the side, other side projects)?