Episode 422: Moving in to big tech and building support

5 snips

Aug 19, 2024

Maria, a self-taught software engineer and tech lead, shares her journey of aiming for a big tech transition. She discusses the importance of both technical and soft skills in this shift, debunking misconceptions about roles in larger companies. The conversation highlights strategies for acing challenging technical interviews and the necessity of networking. Maria’s insights on preparing for the demands of big tech environments emphasize the significance of understanding system architecture and collaboration, while also touching on the importance of supporting team dynamics in remote settings.

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Intro

00:00 • 2min

Navigating the Transition to Big Tech

02:12 • 11min

Navigating the Complexities of Technical Interviews

13:23 • 3min

Navigating Code Quality in Remote Teams

16:25 • 11min

Falling in Love with the Problem

27:24 • 3min

Legacy and Laughter in Software Engineering

30:25 • 2min

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

A listener named Maria says,

Hey guys! I am a software engineer working in web development at a small/mid-sized SaaS company. I come from a non-traditional background (self-taught, no CS degree) and I currently have 6 years of experience under my belt, the last 2 years of which I have been tech lead of a small team.

I want to move into big(ger) tech, but I’ve not worked on any large scale systems so far. The biggest thing I’ve worked far had a user base of ~100k users and traffic would typically max out at ~2k concurrent users at peak times. Due to the nature of the work I’ve been doing at smaller companies (and also thanks to this podcast!) my soft skills are strong - I am good at working with lots of different people, I can deliver broad/vague projects, and I’m comfortable tackling ambiguous problems. I think my technical skills are probably decent, I’ve spent time learning system design and best practices, and I’ve put in the work to study CS fundamentals. Thing is, I would have absolutely no clue how to maintain an API that needs to handle 100k requests per second. My hands-on experience of concurrency and threading is basically just simple ol’ async/await.

Grinding Leetcode aside, what can I do to make myself a stronger candidate for breaking into big tech? How can I be competitive against folks who already have big tech experience? Are there any projects I could do that would sway you as a hiring manager? I know it’s terrible market timing, I am just planning ahead.

Love the show, thank you for making me a better engineer! :)
Hi! I have been working at my fully remote company with around 100 people in the engineering department for over a year now. While I see a lot of really smart people here, the code quality is lacking. We’re moving from a monolith powered using an opinionated framework to small services powered by a lightweight library, so there are fewer guardrails.

I have many ideas on how to structure the code, add layering, etc., so the code is easier to understand and maintain. However, the company is very hierarchical, and despite being at a senior level, I don’t talk much to anyone higher than my lead. There are no staff or principal roles. There are also hardly any meetings, and the only ones I attend are within my small team of five people. Most of slack channels for teams are private, and I don’t ever see company-wide ideas like that thrown in the “general” channel.

I initially wanted to present this to my team first, but I am afraid that if they don’t like it for some reason, it will be awkward to take it to higher management afterward. How can I share my ideas with a wider audience and ideally get this approved as part of my work so I don’t have to work on it in my free time?