Team Selection Q&A and Videos

I'm currently at a Tier-3 company with 3.5 YOE and get ~5 recruiters reaching out a week. Some of the messages I can automatically ignore, while some are more compelling. I tend to ignore anything consulting-oriented and am more enticed by the recruiters for specific startups who say something like "come join our series A/B/C startup founded by engineers from Uber/Stripe/Meta! We have $X Million Raised!"

I can only imagine that folks working at Tier 1 or 2 companies must be inundated with these emails and messages all the time and from better companies.

What's good practice and etiquette for handling these? I'm aware of the masterclass on and since I'm aiming for Big Tech or Unicorn, it's somewhat helpful in being able to dismiss a lot of postings.

To make this more concrete, I have 2 specific questions:

1. Is it worth the time responding to recruiters if the answer is no?

2. If my goal is Tier 1 (MegaCap Companies) and I'm at Tier 3, would it be a lot more helpful to get there via Tier 2 (Unicorns and companies people have heard of)?

Open to any other thoughts!

I'm a support engineer in big data profile working in Amazon web services, and I'm looking to transition into a SDE role within the teams like Spark, Hadoop, Yarn EMR infrastructure, etc

At the same time I have been working hard on my promotion from L4 support engineer to L5 support engineer.

Given a scenario if I get promoted to L5 support engineer and later, down the line I also get L4 software engineer role within Amazon, should I take the SDE role at a downgraded level, should I look outside or what should be the best route?

Somebody I know has been working in Amazon BA and related positions for seven years, however they switched to SDE intern positions within Amazon. Do you think it is a wise move?

So, in the past, whenever a job switch happened, it was comparatively easier to align all the interviews and get the offer timing synced up to some extent. But with team matches now, especially with the big companies, how do you manage the timeline for offers, and also, how long should one wait on any of the offers, given there is no assurance of a team match?

I am wondering if there is a strategy that can be applied in this scenario. Let's say one accepts an offer at company A, and there is a lengthy team match process with company B. At what time is it okay to let go of company A? To make things clear, this means you have already started at company A and less than a month to a year into working there, you leave it for company B.

This is assuming that the candidate is joining in a senior role and both companies A & B are big Tech firms.

I live in orange county, CA. I have about 30 years of tech experience where I was a software engineer for most of these 30 years. I also had couple of jobs as manager leading a team of software engineers. For last 5 years, I have been working as a senior software support engineer for a local company here in Orange County, CA.

So I would rather be software engineer than be in a support role where I just do mindless support of enterprise software. And its not very challenging either. So when I started working for this company, 5 years ago, I started to teach myself angular and typescript. Worked on a project and deployed it live on the website and learnt a lot. And really enjoyed programming.

But then 1 year ago, I started applying for actual jobs in angular programming and got zero response. Zero emails from the companies. Zero interviews from the companies. That was very scary. So a friend who works at Microsoft, advised to prepare and apply for SWE job at Microsoft. She mentioned that MS would not care about lack of my latest/greatest experience. If I pass the coding interview, I have a good chance event to get an entry level SWE job which is better than what I am doing these days.

Another reason I would like to work at MS, is that all my 30 years I have worked for midsize companies. I would like to work at MS because I will be surrounded by really smart engineers and people.

I am lucky to have a job, Pay the bills and have health insurance for me and my family. A year ago I started the interview prep, leet code, algoexpert etc. But then for some reason for last 4 months, its really hard for me to study. May be its my age. May be I get very tired after all day of work, and just watch mindless TV and eat sugary snacks and waste my time and health away.

When I used to work on my angular skill sets I was really energized. I had small tasks already in my queue. I could easily get in the flow when programming.

But My highest priority right now is to get a job at Microsoft as a SWE so that I have job part taken care of. Then after that I could work on side projects so that is why I am focused on interview prep but that is not dopaminergic for me. If I work on interview Prep and work on a side project, that could be distracting and not very focused effort (I think)

I feel depressed about my career. Some of my friends are directors, VPs, CIOs for medium to large companies. Here I am still angling for mediocre DEV jobs.

Any how, here at Taro, I would like to meet, interact with engineers, and really find my passion back.

I would really like to join a mastermind here at Taro, where I could hangout with engineers where we could have a conference all once or twice a month, motivate each other, etc.

Thanks for reading..

I'm a new engineer at Meta, and my goal is to find a team with a real product future. Because of that, I'm wondering if there's ways to evaluate if a certain project is going to pick up traction. How can I figure out during the team selection process if a team is doing its due diligence on gathering context and proving out business value before building features or if its just building them for the sake of building them?

I have recently been put into a new project by my manager. I dont like the work in the project and would like to change that before 1 year mark. Its been close to 9 months in my current team. There are no experienced ICs in the project and I dont like the working attitude of others. However, I like my manager and have bonding with him.

Q1 Should I move to a new project?

Q2 How to bring this up to my manager and when is the right time?

Something I want to get more efficient at is promotion trajectory, and team selection is a big part of that. If I were to switch teams, how can I find one that's important for the business and has a good amount of L5 scope? My goal is to move up to L5 soon and have scope to start making progress to L6 as well afterwards.

Hi,

I have 6 years of experience in the software engineering field, mostly working as a software consultant and at not well known startups. Having done MSc in the field AI, I got an offer to interview with Apple for an interesting role that seemed to have the best from 2 worlds - Software Engineering & AI/ML. To my surprise, after 6 interviews over the span of 2 months and an emotional rollercoaster, I got the job at ICT3 level and moved to another country. I thought I might be underleveled at first, but I kept thinking I actually don’t have experience in AI/ML so they’re levelling me as ICT3 must be right, I also don’t feel like a senior yet.

The situation I’m in now at work is very frustrating and disappointing to me, because of the following :

• I’m still onboarding after 9 months in, without being in a senior role. There is no serious documentation, I have to “network” in a forced manner, to find out vital information for an engineer like “do we have 2 prod environments and when do releases happen”.
• up until now I have not received any tasks or projects to sharpen my skills or keep the ones I worked hard for so far
• I had to beg for 8 months to be included in a project, the explanation was “we’re in the planning stage, we’re waiting for OKs to get started”
• I get neither serious SWE experience from this, nor ML/AI related one.
• Over the past month, after telling my manager I would apply for other jobs if this situation (not participating in anything palpable - just meetings) did not change, they finally moved me to another team that’s closest to SWE that this role can get.
• in the new team, they advertised this project that would mostly be backend work in Go. It turns out the codebase belonged to another team and the role that I’m in, does not imply bettering/maintaining their codebase or adding new features, it’s mostly data hillclimbing and adding some strings in the right places, so super humiliating after having prepared from DSA , system design & design patterns
• I don’t get to touch any AI/ML models yet or work with them, because I don’t have experience with AI/ML
• My manager is a new manager and has half the experience in the field as I do. I talked to him about my disappointment of being so undervalued and his take on this is, I first have to learn the tech stack to participate in “more advanced” projects. However my male colleagues, who joined the company a few months earlier than me, have been given more responsibility faster (participating in 2-3 projects after aprox. 6 months in)
• Time spent in the office is not productive at all, I can’t do focused work there at all. People chat and socialise all the time in the open spaced office we all work in and there are at least 60 people working there. This forces me to work overtime & during weekends, to achieve deadlines for the project and to learn the needed tech stack
• I’m starting to feel trapped in this job because it’s consuming my time, including my free time and I’m actually worried that if I continue like this without coding, participating in code reviews & other healthy SWE practices I’ll get out of hand and have a hard time getting another software engineering job or staying relevant in the industry
• Maybe what I’m experiencing in this particular branch of Apple is unusual for FANG or even other Apple jobs and would be grateful for others’ opinions on this situation.

In this economy and the cost of living worldwide, having a safe and secure job is increasingly valuable - especially since all of the layoffs that are happening around tech.

In the last 9 months, I moved to another organization for better pay and new experiences, however, due to complete and utter dysfunction in my project I'm increasingly getting frustrated with this new organization.

I have started to shift to a different project that's more aligned with my skillset and is functionally better in the organization, but this will be a staggered release.

This is positive, but it's still going to be many months until this move has been finalized and I'm unsure if I can maintain my sanity for long enough.

I have already noticed a fall in my quality & speed of work due to this and I'm worried that this will continue in a downward trajectory.

I have other potential offers outside of this (nothing concrete) but have never been out of a job so unsure to take that risk as well.

Due to my situation, I have no dependents or ties, so my ability to take risks is theoretically higher as well.

First of all, thank you guys for making these wonderful courses on Taro. The courses on Onboarding, Internships, Code Quality, and Promotions really helped me shine in my internship.

After my internship, my manager gave me "Strong Hire"; however, I was scared that headcount will be an issue so I applied to some other internships from different companies as "backup" (I planned to graduate an year later if I didn't get the return offer).

Luckily, I received a full-time return offer from Amazon. Now, I am in the interview loop for Google Internship. I am wondering what I should do:

1. Tell my Google Recruiter that I got an Amazon offer and don't waste their time.
2. Do the Google interview, and if I get the offer, go to Google for an internship before joining Amazon full time
3. Do the Google interview, and if I get the offer, reject the offer.

Additional context:

• My team at Amazon is amazing. I love working with software architecture, and the hours are really good. However, promotions are on the slower end. It seems like people from my team are getting promoted in 2.5-3 years.
• The location of Amazon will be in Vancouver (where I grew up - I don't need to pay rent), the location of Google is either Toronto or Montreal (where I will need to pay rent)

I'm currently in bootcamp and deciding between back-end and iOS/Android. I'm pretty neutral about these stacks, but I do have a slight preference for back-end as it seems similar to topics I learned in school.

Are there any differences in growth potential in any of these focus areas?

I am currently a senior fullstack software engineer with 7 YOE. I'm employed at a retail establishment where tech/engineering is not the primary product. Before this, I worked as a business intelligence analyst for two years writing Python and R scripts. As an engineer in my late thirties, I'm looking to grow my career at a big tech company. I hope to secure a position with significant growth opportunities, a good work-life balance, and a high salary. What are some companies (possibly FAANG or FAANG adjacent) to which I can apply to achieve this objective. Any other advice you can give (interview, negotiation, etc.) will be useful as well. Thank you.

Background: I studied Bachelor's in computer science from a Tier 3 college in India and joined a reputed early-stage startup (Bay Area based) as an Operations Manager in India. I worked there for two years, and during that, I got exposure to technology. I gained tech skills by myself and moved to another startup as a Backend Developer.

I have been working as a Backend Developer for the last five years. All the companies I have worked for and left were in the early stage, so until now, I didn’t progress much in my career and still hold the designation of Software Engineer. I am earning and learning decently in Dubai, but I feel like stuck and not moving forward as I don’t see my future, at least in the current startup. I work as an Individual contributor, and management is pretty naive here.

I don’t understand what to do to move ahead from here:

• I don’t feel much enthusiasm for engineering as my other colleagues and friends feel, so I feel like doing MBA and trying Product Management. But I am also not sure as I have already changed my career path once, and I am already 30 years old, so, not sure if doing it is a good idea or not. It's costly as well, so not sure it's a good investment. My wife is also doing an MBA, so I feel maybe FOMO is causing me to try it and get out of this zone.
• One question that keeps me curious is why most of the engineers who are already working in Engineering don’t go for MBA.
• Another option I feel is to try a Master's in computer science as its relatively cheaper than MBA also, I have been doing tech for the past five years so it can be a supportive degree, but I don’t love tech so much that I want to spend whole life in it, so I feel may b its also not a good idea.
• I have a very limited professional circle as I have worked in very small startups and studied at Tier-3 college, so I feel like MBA/MS can help.
• I feel like maybe I can also try FAANG instead of MBA and MS and see what happens from there, but I like my current work with elixir and enjoy it, so I don’t feel much happiness while doing preparation.
• Also, I feel it's been three years here. We are two backend developers here, and we have good money. I get decent work with Elixir. I can stay here at the same startup, and maybe I will grow in future here only, which I strongly feel will not happen.

So, this is the problem I don’t understand where to go in my career from here. I am sure, for one thing, I want to try my startup again (I have tried twice, once in college and once a year back and closed before it started) in future.

I have been contemplating this switch for a while, but have concerns related to the following:

1. Are TPMs more prone to lay-offs?
2. How tough is the switch from TPM back to SDE in case I don't like the TPM role later?
3. Are TPMs less respected than SDEs? I have this fear that this switch might be career suicide for me.

Some context, last July after getting laid off I started searching for new work with a particular focus on FAANG.

I garner traction with a few companies but am elated when hear from a FAANG head hunter.

I passed the first interview. Scheduled the second and it wasn’t until the confirmation email of the second interview that I saw “Contract”. I was greatly disheartened though I figured I might as well go through the interview process and decide after I’ve lined up all my options. And after talking to the hiring manager I was promised a chance to convert the contract is up.

It was a hard decision, but ultimately I passed up on a well paying senior role at smaller company to take a stab at FAANG.

And I loved it. The engineers I work with are brilliant, the products impacting orders of magnitude more clients than I ever have before and I'm learning.

However, after shipping our first project, the hiring manager that brought me on board switched teams. The projects I've been reassigned to have been largely tech debt and non technical. I have had no direct manager for 4 months with no new one stepping in in the foreseeable future. While conversion is supposedly still on the table, there is no one tracking my contributions and there is a new stipulation of “if the market permits” tacked on top, meaning they have an excuse to prolong the contract rather than give a chance to convert.

The cherry on top of all this is, recruiters from this company have reached out multiple times over the past two weeks but pull out after I inform them that I'm currently contracting for them. This is due to the understandable “external” vs “internal” hiring conflicts.

So I guess the question is, should I quit and open up the chance to once again start applying externally? Or would it make more sense to stick around and try for the mythical conversion or even just maintain and study for the inevitable interviewing at the end of the contract? Maybe try being overemployed?

I have tried asking the stand in managers, but they have much bigger fish to fry than the ambitions of a contractor so I would really appreciate some opinions on how I might navigate this period of contracting.

Thanks for the read and your time,

E

Hi,

I unfortunately missed this event last evening: .

I would really appreciate someone highlighting the biggest takeaways.

I'm especially interested in the question "Switching jobs in the poor economy: good or bad idea?" but key points from other topics would be helpful too.

Thank you so much!

Working on personal projects is fun. You have ownership, you work on a problem you care about, etc.

But at work, you might not care too much about the problem that the company product is solving, or you might not have sufficient ownership, or maybe your role is too restricted (e.g., you like talking to customers, but the nature of your SWE job means you are only expected to code).

Basically, you know what you like, but the nature of your job does not fully align with your desires/goals.

How do you navigate such situations?

Many people say to have a hobby outside of work so that you don’t crave fulfillment from work itself. That could be an approach, but I feel that when the work itself is fulfilling/fun/in alignment with what we want, that could be an even better way, as it’s tied to career growth.

Hi Taro Community!

I am in a very similar position as mentioned by someone here: and from the responses it is evident that switching teams/companies will be an unavoidable step soon. I am currently at an entry-level position (will be completing 6 months at current company soon) and wish to look for roles at the next level of hierarchy (for instance my current role is equivalent to SDE 1, I wish to look for roles similar to SDE 2 or equivalent next). Few points:

• I am planning to complete 1 year at my current company, so by the time I switch I shall have ~1 yr of experience as an entry-level software engineer (apart from other experiences as internships/side projects/etc.)
• Firstly, is it realistic to prepare for mid-level at the current position? Do companies hire entry-level SWE's with at most 1 yr of experience for mid-level?
• If yes, is it advisable to apply now (or 6 months down the line)? I do not wish to work as an SDE-1 (entry-level) in another company by leaving my current one as it will only lead to further delays in promotions (I believe it takes at least a few months to set a good impression in a new team that you are capable for a promotion)
• How can I best utilize the next 6 months before I aggressively start applying to companies? I understood the point related to side projects - is it advisable to build side projects in the tech stack my team is using, or should I expand my scope to include new technologies I am interested (but not actively working on right now)?

Any insights/suggestions/interview tips will be really appreciated. I have very less workload right now and really want to make the best use of time to switch further.

Thank you!

I recently applied for an internal transfer. As part of the company process, I discussed it with my manager. He approved my application for that one role, which fell through due to internal changes to the role. My manager was not particularly happy about my transfer request, though he mentioned how the company is supportive of engineers seeking internal opportunities.

What do I do to mitigate any potential consequences of the failed internal transfer (e.g. getting a poor performance review, being first on the chopping block for any layoffs, etc.)? Right now, I'm thinking it would be best to keep my head down and produce the best work I can, not applying to any other internal roles.

As a fresher embarking on a software engineering career, I find myself torn between the option of moving to Colorado or the Bay Area.

The Bay Area stands out for its high cost of living and tax rates, which are considerably higher than those in Colorado. While the compensation package in the Bay Area might be slightly higher, the net income I would receive after considering living expenses is not significantly greater. On the other hand, the Bay Area offers more software engineering opportunities.

In terms of quality of life, Colorado appears to have the edge. The state boasts an abundance of outdoor activities, providing opportunities for relaxation and exploration. Moreover, Colorado is where my girlfriend/boyfriend resides, offering a strong support system and enhanced mental well-being.

Given these considerations, I am left contemplating which path to choose. Should I prioritize the potential career opportunities and higher compensation in the Bay Area, or should I opt for the enhanced quality of life, outdoor activities, and the presence of my partner in Colorado?

I understand there is no best answer but I would like to learn some of your opinions.

I recently joined a growth team here at Meta. I'm getting the feeling that we, as software engineers, are evaluated more on experimentation and user impact rather than amount of code written.

We wouldn't have a dedicated PM to provide direction on features or a line of tickets for to be assigned to us. It sounds pretty self-driven and it's very different from my previous role.

Does anyone have any advice on how to succeed in a role like this and what are some key qualities to work on to work my way from E4 to E5?