Taro's official blog designed for Software Engineer career growth. Onboarding, compensation, promotion and more

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Talk and Observe: A Framework For Engineering Onboarding

Talk and Observe: A Framework For Engineering Onboarding

I've been "the new engineer" at 7 different companies in my career, at varying levels of seniority and company size. I've also directly worked with 100s of software engineers where the same topic comes up repeatedly: onboarding. The onboarding period, usually the first 2-3

How I Became A Tech Lead And What I Learned Along The Way

How I Became A Tech Lead And What I Learned Along The Way

If I tell you how I became a tech lead you’re going to laugh. You see, I became a tech lead first in my head, and later in reality. There I was, a fresh Eng 2 who just came back from a leadership training for which my manager at

The Ultimate Software Engineer Internship Survival Guide

The Ultimate Software Engineer Internship Survival Guide

We're entering our favorite time of year – summer intern season! From excited new faces joining the team meeting to anxious faces trying to make sense of a massive codebase, internships are hugely important for students. Done correctly, interns earn valuable experience, accelerate their careers, and sample the life

I Just Received a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) -- What Should I Do?

I Just Received a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) -- What Should I Do?

A PIP is a formal document to let an employee know about recurring performance issues. The performance improvement plan (PIP) indicates that the employee is not meeting expectations for their job, and without an improvement, they'll be let go. There's no denying that receiving a PIP

Software Engineers and Startups - Finding Your Perfect Fit

Software Engineers and Startups - Finding Your Perfect Fit

Startups are fundamental to any thriving tech ecosystem. One of the beauties of the tech industry is that most of the FAANG companies started off as a startup in someone's college dorm room or garage! Working at a startup can be an exciting experience for an engineer at

Inside The Layoff Era of Big Tech (Meta, Google, Amazon Layoffs)

Inside The Layoff Era of Big Tech (Meta, Google, Amazon Layoffs)

In the past 5 days: * Google laid off 12,000 * Microsoft laid off 10,000 * Amazon laid off 18,000 When I joined Meta back in 2017, I never expected to see large-scale layoffs at the biggest, most profitable tech companies in the world (Meta laid off 11,000 employees

A Framework for Learning New Tech Fast

A Framework for Learning New Tech Fast

As time passes in your engineering career you’ll quickly learn that part of being a Software Engineer is learning new technologies and effectively applying them (as quickly as you can). Therefore a prerequisite to this guide is at least a strong fundamental understanding of a single stack (this can