Engineering Advice You Didn't Ask For

Season 2 is finally here! In this episode, we talk about the topic on everyone's mind — layoffs. The tech industry has seen massive layoffs at small start-ups to FAANG. There's no such thing as job security anymore. So how should you prepare for a potential layoff at your company? What are the warning signals to look out for? What do you do if you're laid off, or if you're safe?

When negotiating your best Tech Offer. What should you consider beyond the money money money?

Article about Louie's Career Trajectory by Gergely Orosz on PragmaticEngineer.com: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/from-engineer-to-director?s=r

Shownotes:   Zain's FAANG Interview Course: https://zainrizvi.gumroad.com/l/insider-advice-on-how-you-can-pass-faang-interviews/ea Zain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZainRzv

Promotion level 1 to level 2 Projects impact should you go deep or should you go for breadth scope of influence? What is a promotion packet How do you become visible internally without hogging all the oxygen? Opportunity is unevenly distributedHeadquarters vs distributed office Company culture biased towards delivery or operations Finding your sponsor Activating your sponsor Does bias play a role?

Topics: Avoiding Burnout Effective Remote Leadership Effective Remote Work Effective Remote Meetings What does it mean to be Async-First & People-First? Remote-First vs. Remote-Friendly People-First vs. Business-First Recovering from Burnout Shownotes: Marissas's Course - Avoiding Burnout from Remote Work: https://marissagoldberg.gumroad.com/l/avoidingburnout Marissa's website: https://www.marissagoldberg.com/ Marissa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mar15sa Adam Grant on Fighting The Zoom Fatigue (Cameras off doesn't reflect disengagement. It helps to prevent burnout and promote attention): https://twitter.com/adammgrant/status/1430882464407474180 Book - The Culture Map: https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Map-Breaking-Invisible-Boundaries/dp/1610392507/

Topics: - Teams hiring juniors - How important is it to hire juniors? - How do junior engineers get experience - What should ideal team look like - How do evaluate the company for you? - Expectations as a junior engineer - Contributions first 90 - How to onboard junior vs senior - Is Bootcamp a valid path? Shownotes: https://www.crunchbase.com/ https://github.com/tBaxter/questions-for-employers https://github.com/lkostrowski/job-interview-questions-to-ask-companies

Topics: When to promote from within? Why? Who is the best kind of engineer that will most succeed as a manager? The generalist or the specialist? The backend-heavy or the frontend-heavy? Do they need to be at a certain level? Do they need to be Senior to transition into management? How technical should it be? How to convince engineers that have the profile (traits + hard skills), but are skeptical about moving to the dark side of management? What if there are two or more who want it? The team's opinion matters more than yours as the hiring manager? When to hire externally? What are your favorite questions for external candidates? Shownotes: https://twitter.com/thiagoghisi/status/1496625130188857348 https://twitter.com/ramannoodlez/status/1495146825736675334 https://twitter.com/LBacaj/status/1490931625953308674 https://twitter.com/marcprecipice/status/1479731951162380288

Topics: Managing poor performance PIPs (Performance Improvement Plans) Firing - Letting go. Layoffs Show Notes: The five keys to a successful Google team (Psychological safety): https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/ Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0791239V7/

The Great Resignation gained steam again in November, as a record number of 4.53 million Americans quit their jobs. Topics: Changing Jobs The reasons why people change jobs: The right reasons & The wrong reasons Do most people leave their company or leave their manager? Mental health/burnout - is this a trigger? Is the grass greener on the other side? Do you go towards a better job? Are you leaving a bad job? What is the cost of changing jobs? How often is healthy for your career to change jobs? Show Notes: Glassdoor - Company Salaries Levels.FYI - Tech Companies Levels & Salaries Blind: Anonymous Professional Network H1B Visa Salary Database - By Employer, Job, or City VisaDoor - Green Card PERM Salary Database VisaDoor - Search Example: Netflix Engineering Manager 2021 Green Card Petitions Book: No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

The one about the famous one-on-one meetings. What is the purpose of 1:1 meetings? How often should you have 1:1s? Whose responsibility are they? What should their frequency be? Some advice for new managers? What if the person isn't engaging or contributing? Some common pitfalls to avoid Should you come to them with an agenda? Transcript: