How I Became an Engineering Manager (from a Software Engineer at Uber, Microsoft, Skype)

 March 28, 2021

Here is the link. 

My story of going from a software engineer to a lead, and then engineering manager at Uber. Through JP Morgan, Skype / Microsoft, Skyscanner, ending up at Uber. Part 1 of the Developing Engineers into Leaders, as recorded at CTO Craft Conference. - Part 2: A team of leaders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTfcn...​ - Part 3: Growing as an engineering manager & other questions answered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPp0_...​ CTO Craft Community: https://ctocraft.com/​ My book on mobile apps at scale: http://mobileatscale.com/​ (free for a few months) 01:05​ - Intro 01:46​ - My journey into leadership 03:20​ - Skype, Microsoft and going all-in on Scrum 06:30​ - Skyscanner and the accidental engineering lead 07:30​ - Uber and a formal path to management Connect with me on other platforms: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz​ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyor...​ - Newsletter on software engineering: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ne...​ Books I've written (and am writing): - Software engineering resumes: https://thetechresume.com/​ - Building Mobile Apps at Scale: http://mobileatscale.com/​ - The Software Engineer's Guidebook: https://www.engguidebook.com/​ - All books: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/bo...

Performance Review: Biases that Could Hurt You and How to Counter Them (from a Manager)

 March 28, 2021

Here is the link. 

Your performance review might have biases when your manager delivers it to you. How can you spot them, and what can you do to counter them, and get a more fair review? At Uber, as an engineering manager, I've done dozens of performance reviews. I learned about biases early on through unconscious bias training: and I was guilty of most of them. I'm sharing the most common biases I've observed, and my advice on countering them. Read a longer blog post accompanying the video: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pe...​ 00:00​ | Intro 00:56​ | What are biases? 01:50​ | Types of feedback you could get on a performance review 03:43​ | A trick to get more specific feedback from overly generic feedback 04:49​ | The 8 most common biases on performance reviews and ways to counter them 04:55​ | The recency bias and countering it (Bias #1) 06:18​ | The strictness bias and countering it (Bias #2) 09:06​ | The leniency bias (Bias #3) 09:34​ | The Horns Bias (Bias #4) 12:15​ | The Halo Bias (Bias #5) 13:58​ | The Similarity Bias (Bias #6) 16:26​ | The Central Tendency Bias (Bias #7) 17:07​ | Fun fact: the reason why forced curves exist 18:47​ | The Contrasting Bias 22:16​ | On pushing your manager to give you better quality feedback Connect with me on other platforms: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz​ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyor...​ - Newsletter on software engineering: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ne...

The Trimodal Nature of Software Engineer Compensation: Why Positions Pay a (Very) Different Salary

 March 28, 2021

Here is the link. 

There can be a 2-5x difference in compensation / salary for the same software engineering position, in the same location in Europe and Canada. But why? Please share your EU software engineering salary, if you've not done so: http://pragmaticurl.com/salary​ . In the next video(s), we'll go through specific numbers, based on both this data and numbers I've sourced from a few verified sources. Mentions in the video: - Equity for software engineers: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/eq...​ - The trimodal nature of software engineering salaries: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/so...​ - My book on tech resumes: https://thetechresume.com/​ - Getting into the #3 type of companies (preparing for the coding & systems design interviews): https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/pr...​ - Email advice for senior and above interviews at Big Tech (please don't forward): https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/te...

00:00​ - Intro 01:16​ - The 3 salary distributions 04:27​ - The #3 type of companies 07:41​ - How can you get into these companies? 08:23​ - Important things outside salary 10:20​ - Differences between the 3 company types 12:00​ - Advice in getting into Big Tech at the senior and above levels

Books I've written (and am writing): - Software engineering resumes: https://thetechresume.com/​ - Building Mobile Apps at Scale: http://mobileatscale.com/​ - The Software Engineer's Guidebook: https://www.engguidebook.com/​ - All books: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/bo...

Connect with me on other platforms: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz​ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyor...​ - Newsletter on software engineering: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ne...

My portfolio | NOK, GTE, GRAY stocks | What to learn next

 March 28, 2021

Introduction

It is important for me to understand business better through pandemic, take risk to understand how business is in danger to go through pandemic. 

My positions

How do you grow as a software engineering manager? And other questions answered

March 28, 2021

Here is the link. 

Do engineering managers miss coding? What would I advise for EMs starting to manage other managers? And other questions answered. As recorded on the CTO Craft Conference 2020 (https://ctocraft.com/​). Developing Engineers into Leaders Series: - Part 1: How I became an engineering manager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMrBH...​ - Part 2: A team of leaders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTfcn...​ - Part 3: this video.

00:00​ - Intro 00:47​ - What's different in leadership in engineering versus other roles? 02:07​ - What would you recommend to develop when starting to manage engineering managers? 04:22​ - Do you miss coding, as an engineering manager? 06:08​ - How do you grow as an EM, especially if you're the only one in the organization? Books I've written (and am writing): - Software engineering resumes: https://thetechresume.com/​ - Building Mobile Apps at Scale: http://mobileatscale.com/​ - The Software Engineer's Guidebook: https://www.engguidebook.com/​ - All books: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/bo...​ Connect with me on other platforms: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz​ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyor...​ - Newsletter on software engineering: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ne...

Big Tech Hiring is Conservative - But Why? (from an ex-Uber engineering manager)

March 28, 2021

Here is the link. 

I've been a hiring manager for 5 years at tech companies and observed hiring decisions to be conservative. Let's dive into why this is. Are you applying to Big Tech? I wrote a book on how to write a software engineering resume to stand out. Free for any developer out of a job: https://thetechresume.com/​ 00:00​ - Intro 01:28​ - The nature of Big Tech 02:35​ - Reason 1: it's time-consuming to let people go 04:50​ - Reason 2: hiring managers often don't hire for themselves 06:00​ - Reason 3: the debrief panels making hiring decisions 06:48​ - The upside of taking risks on hiring 07:54​ - If you take away one thing Music from: www.bensound.com Connect with me on other platforms: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz​ - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyor...​ - Newsletter on software engineering: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ne...​ Books I've written (and am writing): - Software engineering resumes: https://thetechresume.com/​ - Building Mobile Apps at Scale: http://mobileatscale.com/​ - The Software Engineer's Guidebook: https://www.engguidebook.com/​ - All books: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/bo...

Benzinga.com | GTE.TO stock | CIBC analyst on GTE.TO

March 28, 2021

I like to spend 15 minutes to 30 minutes to explore Benzinga.com website, and learn more about GTE.TO stock. 

System Design Interview Book Review: Finally, a Book for Getting Better at Architecting Systems

 March 28, 2021

Here is the link. 

I've come across the book System Design Interview: an Insider's Guide by accident (paperback book, and online course). I was looking for good book resources after several people have been asking me how they can get better at building distributed systems or learning designing systems at scale. Especially when they don't have the opportunity to do so as part of their day-to-day work.

The topic is somewhat a chicken-and-egg one. You'll know how to design a large system after you designed one before. But if you've not done so: how would you build an URL shortener like bit.ly, with hundreds of millions of links? A chat app like Whatsapp? A file storage system like Dropbox or Google Drive?

There are many resources online - the most well-known one being System Design Primer on GitHub or reading High Scalability articles. In my case, I was looking for a more "structured" approach, as opposed to just dumping a bunch of concepts you need to know in these interviews.

This book is the most "real-world" systems design book I've come across that does a solid effort to teach concepts, step by step, to people who have yet to work at systems at scale. And it's also a welcome refresher to those who are familiar with some of these systems but would like to venture into various other types of large systems. It is clear from the start that the book was written by someone familiar with systems at scale. The author is Alex Xu, a software engineer previously at Oracle, Zynga, and Twitter.

The book comes with more than 10 case studies and a framework that it introduces and consistently uses with these case studies. There's also an accompanying online course that has the same content as the book, but you can follow along in a web browser, and the diagrams are colored.