Profile picture

Career Advice About Startups

Videos and discussions from Taro to grow your tech career.

How do I turn SWE roles behaviors/descriptions into concrete actions in a startup environment?

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Series B Startup profile pic
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Series B Startup

Question: "For being promoted from SWE I to SWE II, how do I take the behaviors my company has associated with each role (below) and make that more concrete for a growth plan, taking into account the changing & flexible timelines startups have?"

For context, I already have weekly one-on-ones with my manager (who is new at being a manager & is also my mentor), and a growth plan (that I created with him) that roughly outlines (meets most expectations, meets expectations and exceeds expectations for my role). Additionally, keep in mind I work at a startup w/ <30 people so highly specific concrete goals set on a particular date can change in 2-3 weeks as priorities change. Also, my company has defined a series of behaviors as to what each SWE level should be able to accomplish. Here it is.

Software Engineer I (<1 year - 2 years)

  • Technical Skill
    • Broad knowledge of CS concepts
    • Focus on growing as an engineer, learning existing tools, resources, and processes
  • Getting Stuff Done
    • Develops their productivity skills by learning source control, editors, the build system and other tools as well as testing best practices.
    • Capable of taking well-defined sub-tasks and completing these tasks
  • Impact
    • Developing knowledge of a single component of our architecture
  • Communication & Leadership
    • Effective in communicating status to the team
    • Exhibits company’s core values, focuses on understanding and living these values
    • Accepts feedback graciously and learns from everything they do

Software Engineer II (2-6Years+)

  • Technical Skill
    • Writes correct and clean code with guidance; consistently fellows stated best practices
    • Participates in technical design of features with guidance
    • Rarely makes the same mistake twice, begins to focus on attaining expertise in one or more areas(eg. embedded , testing, algorithm, support code, commlink).
    • Learns quickly and makes steady progress without the need for constant significant feedback from more senior engineers.
  • Getting Stuff Done
    • Makes steady progress on tasks; knows when to ask for help in order to get themselves unblocked.
    • Able to own small-to-medium features from technical design through completion.
    • Capable of prioritizing tasks; avoids getting caught up in unimportant details and endless “bikeshedding”.
  • Impact
    • Self-sufficient in at least one large area of the codebase with a high-level understanding of other components
    • Capable of providing on-call support for their area including systems that they are not familiar with.
  • Communication & Leadership
    • Gives timely, helpful feedback to peers and managers
    • Communicates assumptions and gets clarification on tasks up front to minimize the need for rework.
    • Solicits feedback from others and is eager to find ways to improve
    • Understands how their work fits into the larger project and identifies problems with requirements.
Show more
Posted 2 years ago
133 Views
1 Comment

Need guidance on my career path - Leave for FAANG?

Senior Software Engineer at Taro Community profile pic
Senior Software Engineer at Taro Community

I have worked at two larger companies and two small startups (currently at one). I'm quite content with my current company and role, as I have ample opportunities for growth and a great work-life balance. However, the only factor that makes me contemplate leaving my current position is that I'm earning less than some of my peers. I'm not comparing myself to the exceptionally high-earning individuals; rather, I'm looking at other senior software engineers who are making around $400K in total compensation. Currently, I'm earning around $250K. It's important to note that I recognize my experience level is relatively young compared to those with 20-30 years of experience, as I have only 6 years of experience.

I want to think about the bigger picture and position myself in the best possible way for the future. When I discuss this with some of my peers, they suggest that I should work at a FAANG company at least once to attract recruiters from better companies. While I've always been drawn to roles with high visibility and a need for velocity, I've found that at larger companies, I tend to work at a slower pace with less visibility. However, if transitioning to a FAANG role is indeed the key to opening up new career opportunities, I'm willing to consider it.

Has anyone else faced a similar dilemma in their career? I would appreciate any insights or advice from individuals who have gone through a similar experience.

Show more
Posted a year ago
130 Views
3 Comments

How to become a senior engineer at early stage startup by finding problems to fix?

Anonymous User at Taro Community profile pic
Anonymous User at Taro Community

I am a junior engineer at a series A startup. I was interning for the past 8 months and got converted full time, now working as full time junior engineer for the past 3 months. I had been getting "Exceeds Expectation" from my tech lead/manager.

But from the past 3 1:1s from the tech lead. He mentioned that

1. My code is not up to the mark to directly merge without taking a much deeper look into. Basically mentioning that my code is not levelling as a senior engineer. There are no senior engineers in my team, I directly report to tech lead. So I really cannot learn how to write better code as he mentioned. Where can I learn this?

2. I have been just crunching tasks or helping someone without understanding the root cause. He mentioned I lack "Product Thinking". I am really not sure what he means by this. I thought helping others would help me grow in my career. By helping others I mean if there is a small task that is required by some other team, I just go and do it without understanding entirely what they want.

3. The founders keep mentioning that there is a lot of growth potential in our company

I really work hard every day from 8 AM and late 11 till night but the work I do is not helping me to grow and I want to grow and become a senior engineer. There are not even tests in our codebase, and a lot of problems I see in the way we do things which I don't know I can help solve . How can i grow? how can I tell them that I can be that senior engineer to solve the problems? How can I learn to make good decisions as to what needs to be prioritised in terms of which task needs to be done? If I don't know let's say how to write tests, how can I learn that and cultivate that in the team?

Show more
Posted 2 years ago
126 Views
1 Comment

Dealing with Confusing Feedback from my CTO in a pre-seed stage startup

Senior Software Engineer at Pre-Seed Startup profile pic
Senior Software Engineer at Pre-Seed Startup

Hey all, I’ve been working at a pre-seed startup for the last two months and I think I haven’t “clicked” with the CTO yet (I’m the only engineer right now). To give you some context

  1. We’re aiming to launch two experiments per week so they are more MVPs rather than complete features (I’m ok with cutting corners and making things “not the right way”)
  2. Each experiment I’m launching sends data to Mixpanel so we can know if it “moves the needle” or not. These experiments are aligned with our KPIs (see #5)
  3. My CTO who happens to be the co-founder has little experience working in tech, I assume 1.5 years tops. He's 25.
  4. We're trying to find Product Market Fit
  5. The KPI we're after are: Retention and Revenue
  6. I've received praise from CTO and CEO about the work that I've done, and I'm extremely transparent with everything I do: Share status in Slack, and Linear, I record Looms, share screenshots, etc.
  7. We have 18 months of runway.

He has said twice that even though I'm superb technically speaking; he's having a hard time seeing me thinking about the product and how to improve revenue/retention and he wants to see more ownership on my end; and that frustrates me because as I said on #1 and #6, I've successfully launched experiments week by week and have received praised from them multiple times. So IDK what's going on, I find this to be frustrating because from my POV I've done great work, I've spoken to users, shipped and tracked experiments, and improved our development workflow (we don't work with prod data anymore), proposed new things that we can do, etc...

The last time I talked to my CTO about this (this has happened twice now) he suggested that I should think more about "growing the business and taking ownership" without giving me a clear path forward, and I assume that when I meet with him again this week he's going to play that card again (being vague about how to improve/what am I doing wrong)

It frustrates me because it doesn't make sense to me to work in a place where my contributions are not appreciated.

  • Have you been in a situation like this before?
  • If he doesn't give me a clear path forward, what can I do then? it seems that I missed the point the first time.
  • I know how bad the market is right now, but quitting is not out of the table (I have 12-18 months of runway/savings)

Thanks a lot!

Show more
Posted 2 years ago
110 Views
8 Comments