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

This question relates to Alex's talk on side projects (an excellent session by the way which really inspired me!). It made a lot of sense to pick something super simple and do it. However, what do you do once you've implemented your simple idea? Specifically in terms of tracking and marketing:

1. Tracking: I've heard Alex/Rahul mention the number of users is important (moreso than monetizing etc). Maybe Android/iOS apps have in built tracking (I'm not sure), but I'm doing a web app - do you recommend proactively integrating tracking tools to ensure you can show how many users you have if asked about it? Any specific ones? Esp since having logins and account maintenance adds complexity and wanted to keep my app simple.
2. Marketing: How did you get to 100,000 installs? Was it just early days and the app stores were less saturated? Did you do any marketing or did people just happen to search your app? I can't imagine that many people just stumbling onto my website!

There are many directions you can take testing, but just want to understand how to frame the right mindset of "proving" impact for a concept where success is that you prevented or saved risk from the company (no one will know about it essentially if you do your job well).

Hi,

I am not sure maybe I am going crazy but I think my manager doesn't want my growth. I have been at the company for more than 2 years now. My team was doing very basic stuff. Recently our team direction changed and we got interesting work. My manager was on vacation and that work is now led by some other engineer in the team. I didn't say anything. Also, time and again he tries to find fault in front of the whole team and he does with me only. How should I deal with him?

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?

Historically, my managers have never been willing to commit to a set of performance criteria (i.e. what it looks like to meet criteria, exceed criteria, or be promoted). They usually defer to company guidelines without specifying what I can do on my project that would meet their bar. I get it, as they want to hedge their bets and motivate me without committing to anything. My career has gone well anyway and I ultimately get good enough reviews and periodic promotions. However, I often get feedback that high performance or promotions require me to do things that I am already doing and including in my review. I do not know what else to do to get stellar reviews.

I have been asked to lead a large, risky, technically challenging project with a scope and time horizon significantly beyond my level. The project sounds interesting but like a huge amount of work and stress. If I take on the role, I would like to be rewarded for it. Whether successful delivery leads to a promotion is a big factor in my decision. My manager will not commit to what succeeding in this project means for my career.

In general, is there a way to get more concrete criteria and commitments from managers? In this case specifically, what should I do?

Hi,

I am in the offer stages for a job. The recruiter mentioned that benefits would go in effect on the first of the month. If I am joining mid-June, my health care benefits would go in effect in July. Is this normal?

I have joined Google as L4 Full stack engineer - Frontend heavy (70% Frontend, 30% Backend). I have joined the GCP Org. I have 6+ Years of Experience and I have worked in Uber for 3.5 years as SDE 2 Frontend Engineer in past.

I am working on google primarily on Angularjs, typescript, Graphql on frontend side and java, sql on backend side. I want to make sure that i perform well and able to reach L5 within next 1-1.5 years. i.e next December cycle.

I have a fair idea from Uber point of view.

But someone who has deeper insights about what to do right and how things work at google it will be great.

I received feedback from my manager indicating that I need to improve my understanding of upstream and downstream dependencies when working on big ambiguous problems. They suggested that I should propose solutions that properly consider these dependencies' requirements as in my preview project I missed a few so the tech lead on my team had to point those out. Could you recommend any resources? techniques?

Hey folks,

I'm currently facing a tough decision - whether to ask for a raise at my current company. I am unsure if it's the right time to do so or not. Here's a little context to help you understand my situation

My timeline in the company:

• In 2023
  • I joined the company as a Sr SWE II (L4)
  • I joined the company nine months ago on August 23'
  • I made it to the second review cycle of the year (mid-October), and I got a "Consistently meeting expectations." My manager then said that he was very impressed that I managed to get so much done in that short time and that he could see strong signs of a Staff Engineer (L5) in me.
  • I shipped the most important project in Q4, 2023, on time. I even ended up as the technical lead of that project (the Staff engineer in that project got pip-ed, but that's another story)
• In 2024:
  • I mentored a Sr SWE I (L3) on her first project as a lead.
  • I'm the lead of the web working group
  • I'm interviewing candidates almost on a weekly basis
  • I'm one of the owners of the Design System initiative
  • I just got a "Consistently exceeding expectations" in our current review cycle. I've been praised for how easy it is to work with me, my technical quality, my communication skills, and my thoughtful PR reviews. And that I should keep working on my influence across the organization.

How things are right now:

• My previous manager quit to join another startup, and I got an interim manager (we're hiring another manager for my team)
• I ended up talking about salary adjustments with my previous manager the other day (there, I didn't ask for a raise; it was just a casual conversation). He told me that the company does a compensation review every January and that I wasn't considered for the one that happened in January 2024 because I didn't join earlier than July 2023.
• The next performance review will happen in mid-Oct 2024.
• I will be leading a new tiger team (6 engs) until the end of Q2.

Questions I have right now:

• Is this the right time to ask for a raise?
• I've never asked for a raise.
• I know for a fact that an L3 has a pretty similar (<5%) salary to me, and I know that another L4 has a >5% salary than me.
• Should I wait until I finish this new project, the next performance review, or my first anniversary?
• We're in the hockey stick growth stage.
• I also really like working here, and the market has been bad lately.

Thanks!

How do you assess the Financial Health and market stability of a startup before applying for a job there?

Hi everyone,

I recently joined a new company and am in the process of onboarding with a new team. After a week, I’ve noticed several challenges stemming from our team lead’s transition back to an individual contributor role. Currently, there’s no clear roadmap, sprint retrospectives haven’t been conducted for a while, and regular 1:1s with engineers are missing.

While the company is trying to hire a new engineering manager, which might take at least three months, I’m considering stepping up to fill in some of the management gaps. I’ve always been interested in moving into a management role, and this situation seems like it could be a good opportunity.

Do you think this is a good idea? If so, how should I go about offering myself for these responsibilities, or should I wait to be approached? Any advice or experiences shared would be greatly appreciated!

My product team just finished an intense death march project that lasted 6 months and involved collaborating with 2 platform teams. Management pressured us work to nights/weekends. Morale was low because the deadlines were completely unrealistic -- Leadership wanted this project done in 3 months, but it ultimately took 6 months. Any tips to inspire / motivate teams in these situations?

Background:

Our team inherited a set of products which are full of spaghetti code and bad design. We are currently building a high visibility and high impact project based on the backend of this system.

Although the main project UI goes on-track, some critical backend design flaws will hinder product performance and reliability within a couple of months - maybe close to or right after official product launch, which will turn our whole effort into a joke since we have executives' eyes on it.

My progress this year so far: (besides my roadmap item commitment)

• 1. Identified a system hotspot, finished analysis & design, and convinced our EM to rewrite this module (currently 95% finished by a junior engineer.)
• 2. Rewrote 1 foundation module to eliminate legacy design flaw (ended up with less code, less complexity, same performance, more system reliability.)
• 3. Design and rewrite another foundation backend module to address legacy design flaw & unblock development of the next milestone
• 4. Leading on technical design and discussion of a re-architecture for the overall backend end to end flow. (simplify design, improve performance)

NOTE:
- I tried to delegate 2 & 3, but no other engineers can do them after a few try since it's too tightly coupled with the rest of the system.
- our team lead is championing for all these work, which is how we are able to make room for them

Benefit of these work:

• accelerate other engineers' work in the system
• cut clean with the legacy system design flaw, improve product reliability and performance
• ensure our team's win on the high visibility project that built on top of this backend
• easier oncall for the short run or long run

My questions:

• In terms of performance review, my manager thinks this is better engineering work, while I think is closely tied to the success of our main project. What kind of evidence do I need to convince him? (My EM is not very technical)
• From his tone, I sense he thinks better engineering work in considered "lower priority contribution". Is this true? How do I communicate the importance of code/design quality with him?
• I'm trying to reach the staff level promo, does this initiative demonstrate any trait for the next level? (I'm not doing it for promo, but my EM's neglect on this makes me pretty frustrated because refactoring and rewrite is such tedious and painful work... I want to make it count)

Thank you!

I know Alex has talked about his experience mentoring 10-20 folks at once and handing out work to people as he went. Videos have talked about "decentralized power" where you figure out how to do something really well and then hand it off to someone else so they grow AND you grow by managing it.

I'd love to hear more folks' experience about how this has gone! I imagine there are some stories where this has been an easier process than others. For instance how have you handled a scenario where you hand someone something and then they dropped the ball because they were too busy? Or what about a scenario where you had a clear vision but early on during handoffs you didn't have a system in place to communicate all the details that you knew but they didn't - how did you fix this?

I'll also share my two cents on this one - hope to discuss more in the comments!

Lerner et al recently found that "[in resume evaluations] there were some characteristics that recruiters consistently favored: experience at a top-tier tech company..." []

I worked at Amazon as a contractor. In my resume, this is clearly labeled as contract work. In social media bios, title lines, and so on, should I claim Ex-FAANG?

I was just laid off. I don't think being laid off is a motivation for applying to any particular company. I will have additional reasons for that. I realize that knowledge of the layoff might lead a company to try and lowball me.

On the other hand, I fully expect to get multiple offers, so I am not too worried about the lowballing concern.

Being laid off isn't something I would blurt out in an interview unless I was directly asked, but I am also active on social media and I am planning to share my layoff journey in real time as opposed to hiding it.

Are there other reasons I am not considering that make it a much better idea to keep this quiet(er)?

What I've noticed is that FAANG companies don't seem to look beyond Data Structure and Algorithms (DSA) or system design in interviews, whereas medium-sized companies also consider other skills. For example, for a Python web framework, they might look at Django, Flask, or FAST. For a data engineer role, Apache Airflow might be important. ATS may not even pickup your resume unless they see very specific word like Django or Apache Airflow in your resume. It seems like it might be easier to prepare for big tech companies since they focus only on DSA, System Design, and behavioral rounds. In contrast, other companies look for such a wide range of skills that it's hard to master and work on all of them.

Let me know your views.

I have gone through a post in Slack about paper reading and its benefits.

As an Android developer, I did not find paper reading will be useful in my day to day job. Because the system design for a frontend Android is different.

I have this doubt from long time: How can i improve my design skills in Android? I see many people in our org come up with a good doubts and points in architecture discussions, but I am not able to do that. Could you please help me with what I can do to improve these design skills? I believe I should constantly do something to master this, but I am not sure what to do.

One way is I can learn it by doing - I am learning from my current project but that is not so scalable. I want to multiply my learning curve here.

Thank you in advance.

I have been generalist my whole career, I have moved from front end web development --> platform as a service web development --> microservices cloud development and now as a ML engineer, all on different tech stacks. I am pretty late in career now, 12-15 years in. What do you recommend, in terms of going forward, do I have a chance with trying to be a staff, or should I switch to PM/EM role? I would eventually want to be a good EM.

From what I have heard so far, Staff is: The person needs to be technically very sound, guide the folks, find projects, carve solutions, and lead without authority.

Engineering managers on other hand: Would work these folks to approve/disapprove these projects, get resources, manage the people (promotions, growth of team - product as well as people).

From this I derive that managerial role is subset of staff + people management. But I am sure I am missing something, what am I missing? Why do people choose to be staff over manager, expect for passion to stay IC (not manage people)? Also, is there a pay difference?

How many days a week do you work in the office (hybrid - as in, the expectation of coming in-person) for FAANGMULA companies (Silicon Valley specifically but ok if other regions) as a ratio to work from home/remote?

How many hours a week for actual work on product vs attending meetings are in-person vs. Zoom or remote?

I'm looking at interviewing at different positions at FAANGMULA companies and tech startups in Silicon Valley (from SF to South Bay) and trying to compare against my commute if I work 2-3 days out of the week from home vs work from home/remote and want to know what the standard expectation is.

I ask since I had a friend (director level) who works in analytics/data science that worked remotely from Hawai'i most of the pandemic at a L5-L7 level depending on how folks define that and was able to work 20 hours a week. Their new job they work remotely from Silicon Valley and commute to another state once a quarter for meetings.

I wonder how common this is, it's a pattern I see with a lot of friends, all CTO, founder, investor type of folks (fractional, etc.) who are "full time" on paper (1099 contract paid an equivalent of what I would have previously expected a W-2 working 40 hours a week would pay). I am having issues explaining to my family and my partner who work the traditional 9-5 job, 40 hours a week in old school Silicon Valley (publicly traded companies, biotech etc.), where they are expected to come in the office 3-5 days a week and work on a W-2 so cannot seem to fathom how I see these examples as possible and how it could be a possibility for me have a better work-life balance, working lesser hours, commuting 2 or 3 days a week ideally and remote.

I'm unsure if roles like a TA and TPM are becoming obsolete from an organizational perspective. However, I've noticed a gap in effectively screening potential candidates for job placement. I believe I have the skills to excel in headhunting, but I'm uncertain if transitioning to this role is the right career move for me at this time.

Hi, can you please post the recording for the office hour on "senior to staff"?