Samuel Singer

"I don't like leetcode style interviews!" See I wasn't making it up! Kurtis Nusbaum tells us more about why engineers don't like leetcode and the types of interviews that lead to a more enjoyable and effective interviewing experience.

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Distinguished Engineers (E9) at Meta make $4m/year. That's 16x the Bay Area median ($255k) Let's break it down [output = input x leverage] We all have 24 hours in a day, so there is a cap on [input] But hey, let's say they manage to have 2x-3x more focused time, so their [input] is 2x-3x There is still 5.3x-8x to go And that's [leverage] Here is the [leverage] they have: 1️⃣ Writing Every piece of text they write is clear to everyone, and they write a lot, for a lot of people 2️⃣ They create something from nothing And that something has clear value to the business 3️⃣ They influence other Engineers around them They are often described as having a "Midas Touch" in terms of their ability to uplift and develop other Engineers around them The best indicator is that the Engineers in their teams get promoted faster 4️⃣ They are well known and have an impact beyond Meta, promoting the brand 5️⃣ They have industry-leading experience in some areas There are rumoured to be <50 E9s at Meta

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𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐄-𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞! I've finally landed a role as a private contractor. I'm diving into the world of e-commerce! After months of searching and searching - dodging scammers who prey upon folks looking for a dev job, and navigating the stressful software engineering job market, I've been contracted to build and maintain an online store for a multi-million dollar equipment business (I can't share more at this time). While this won't solve the problem of needing a full-time role with benefits, this much-needed opportunity lets me flex my dev skills by building a full-fledged e-commerce site with a ton of inventory, managing stock, and crafting captivating content with photos and detailed descriptions. I'm thrilled (and a bit nervous) to start this journey and (hopefully) make a real impact on this 40-year-old business. Huge thanks to everyone for the support and encouragement—you guys rock! I will say this to all of those interested in how I did it. I put myself out there. I reached out to people, I struck up conversations with folks, and I leveraged every professional relationship I had (some personal as well -- 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒!). By focusing on building relationships with folks, eventually, someone I was talking to said, "Oh! You should talk to so-and-so!" They made the introduction, and now I can pay the bills for a while. 😉😁 Networking is important. I didn't apply for this gig because there was no job listing for it. I networked and found someone who needed what I could do, wrote a professional proposal, and was nice and fair with my pricing. I'm still looking for a full-time role; however, I'm very excited about this role, as the company I am contracting with has a lot of potential. #softwareengineer #network #networking #techjobs

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Full-Stack Tao has a cover! I intentionally picked the silhouette of the Empire State Building for this one. It’s a monumental project built almost 100 years ago and it was delivered ahead of schedule and under budget. Surprising isn’t it? It’s a testament to great engineering, an example of what you can do with clear vision and teamwork. It's proof that if we can build skyscrapers in ~400 days, we can build software with good quality in a reasonable time as well. But there’s another reason why I picked such a colossal building. It’s the dream of every software engineer to build its digital equivalent. Don’t believe me? Think about all the imaginary scalability issues we argue about. Think about how we’re worrying over re-rendering problems that never arise. Think about all the abstractions that we put into place in case we want to change a database. Too often we set off to build rigid skyscrapers when we need a small house that we can extend, modify, and renovate now and then. Full-Stack Tao is coming this fall! Want to stay up-to-date with the info about it? There’s a link in the first comment.

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Why Amazon changed their RTO Policy * Increase speed and ownership -> IC:Manager ratio change * Increase invention, collaboration, and culture -> In-Office 5 days a week Is this really why tho? Why Amazon is Enforcing a 5-Day Return-to-Office - according to a former AWS Engineer - https://lnkd.in/eRGmpNij #rto

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In this world of ongoing layoffs, companies going against the grain to build highly customized in-house tech stacks that don't track to the skills and expertise engineers need for their past and future jobs will find themselves becoming a black hole devoid of talent. The ones who are good enough to leave will, and the ones who aren't will feel stuck because their work isn't advancing their skills in a way that adds to their value as an employee.

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🚀 Did you know Meta's Threads team has just rolled out a sleek web version in under THREE months! 😲 Imagine this: Two engineers, Ally C. and Kevin C., took on the massive challenge of bringing the beloved Threads app to web browsers 🌐. They leveraged Meta’s shared infrastructure and nimble practices from their iOS and Android counterparts to make it happen swiftly! 💡 The remarkable part? They didn't just port the app; they crafted it to offer a seamless experience, balancing speed with innovative features. Picture navigating Threads right from your favorite browser – it's not just about extending functionality; it's about enhancing your social media experience! Here's the magic sauce: 🚀 Speed: Thanks to Meta's robust infrastructure, deploying a web client was both rapid and efficient. 🎨 User Experience: Focused on intuitive design and ease of use, making the transition from mobile to web feel natural. 🔧 Engineering Prowess: Utilizing agile practices and a shared codebase to harmonize development across platforms. The real-world impact? 🌍 💼 Remote Work: Seamlessly switch between devices without missing a beat! 📚 Education: Access threaded discussions and collaborative conversations from any computer! 📲 Social Engagement: Enhanced user interaction, driving more meaningful connections online! Kudos to the Threads team for this rapid rollout and transformative addition! 🔥 Meta is setting a new standard for web app deployment 🚀. 🤔 Now, I'm curious: What feature are you most excited to use on Threads' web client? How do you leverage web apps in your daily life? Share your thoughts below! 👇 More info here https://lnkd.in/gd8-yYZJ

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"AI won't take your job anytime soon" People say outside of SF... Meanwhile, Waymo just locked in $5.6 billion in fresh new funding to spread driverless robotaxis to more cities Here's the TLDR on Waymo and what's next: → Why Waymo is eating everyone's lunch - Motion planning smooth as butter (feels safer than human drivers) - 24/7 service while others stuck in "night mode" - Operating in complex urban environments others can't handle - Using DeepMind's AI tech (5+ year advantage) → The Numbers Don't Lie: - 10k ➡️ 100k weekly rides in 12 months - $11.1B total investment (latest round oversubscribed) - 25M+ miles without human drivers - Coverage spanning SF, Phoenix, LA (Austin & Atlanta next) → Why They're Crushing Competition: - Next-gen simulation tech (while others rely on road miles) - Wider operational domain (higher speeds, larger areas) - Smoother rides (actual customer feedback) - Google's unlimited compute + talent advantage → The Reality Check: - Still burning $1.1B quarterly - But scaling 2-10x faster than competitors yearly - First-mover advantage in regulatory approval - Already replacing human drivers at scale Here's the truth: While everyone debates whether AI will take jobs, Waymo quietly shows us how it's done. This isn't just about ride-sharing. It's a blueprint for AI replacing human operators across industries and not just white-collar jobs. People I talk to here in SF think we are 2-5 years away from AI taking white-collar jobs in masses and 10 year period for all other human jobs. Wild times... What's your take? Where do you see the next big opportunity in the new ERA of AI?

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Outcome Or Output, What matters the most?

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🚨 Check it out - hot off the press! 📰 Sudeep Das, Pradeep Varma and Ying Yang are all hiring as we continue to scale! 🙏 If you have a passion for Machine Learning and expertise within Deep Learning, Computer Vision and/or NLP domains, let's connect! #experimentation #DoorDash #hiring #machinelearning

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Becoming a SWE is not a numbers game. 1 full stack app that solves a real business problem is worth 100 to-do apps (or more). Because depth is the key differentiator in a market full of aspiring SWEs. Make your skills useful, don’t just make use of your skills.

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𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗧𝗗𝗗 𝗧𝘂𝗲𝘀𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 🚀 As a Director of Engineering, I firmly believe that staying technical is essential — even in leadership roles. That's why I'm kicking off a new series focused on deep technical dives. First up: tackling Leetcode's Hard Basic Calculator problem. Whether you're sharpening your technical skills or just curious, this series might be for you. Stay tuned for the first post!

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Software agents change coding. AI agents will build the same feature 10 times and select the best version. No limits, no guesswork—just optimized innovation. This is a radical new mindset: iterative, faster than ever, and powered by AI. 🚀 Nikita Shamgunov, CEO of Neon, is focused on the architecture of the future and creating for these next wave of agentic and code-gen applications powered by LLMs. A world where cost, infrastructure, and time barriers are tackled and AI agent development unleashes innovation at scale. The future of software development is parallel, not linear! And we'll need GenAI Friendly serverless database like Neon to make it possible. Watch the full episode to discover: - How serverless Postgres is enabling the next wave of AI-powered apps - Why "breadcrumbs" are crucial for AI agent systems - The architecture behind instant database branching 

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Amazon-to-Google-to-Amazon #a2g2a thought of the day: "Users" vs. "Customers," and why the word a company uses matters immensely. Amazonians have a visceral reaction to the word User. You’re not an Amazon “user,” you’re an Amazon Customer. This is true whether you’re using the Amazon Store, AWS, Prime Video, Prime Music, Alexa, Kindle, Audible, Fresh, etc. It's true whether you're a paying customer or not. This was imprinted onto my amazon reptilian brain over the course of the last 15 years by generations of long-time amazonians around me that consistently, patiently and stubbornly corrected me and lectured me on why the choice of word matters to set a culture. Jack Dorsey, founder of both Twitter and Square, had a brilliant blog about the difference between those two words. It’s an old post (11 yrs ago), but he’s much more articulate than me, so I’ll quote him directly: "The entire technology industry uses the word User to describe its Customers. While it might be convenient, Users is a rather passive and abstract word. No one wants to be thought of as a User. I certainly don’t. And I wouldn’t consider my mom a User either, she’s my mom. The word User abstracts the actual individual. This may seem like a small and insignificant detail that doesn’t matter, but the vernacular and words we use set a very strong and subtle tone for everything we do. So let’s now part ways with our industry and rethink this. The word Customer is a much more active and bolder word. It’s honest and direct. It immediately suggests a relationship we must deliver on.” During my 4 years at Google, I consistently heard the word User, whether that was Search, YouTube, Gmail, Maps, Docs, Google Cloud, etc. That always triggered my amazonian reptilian brain’s visceral reaction. Eventually I wrote a little internal doc on why the choice of words mattered, and in a desperate effort to shift culture, I shared it with every single googler that uttered or wrote the word User anywhere near me. I’m certain some people just found me obnoxious, but others listened and got it, which made me happy. But it felt like I was playing a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Even within my own org, we sent internal announcements about things we had added to our developer tools, and the email would say "The user can do XYZ". No, no, no. First of all, it’s Customer, not User. Secondly, please don’t use the third person! You’re writing to another human being, use the second person. “You can now do XYZ!” The googlers I interacted with during my 4 years at Google DID care about their customers - very much. I even partnered with a User Experience Researcher that was amazing. But the culture itself and the DNA of the company lacked the systemic mechanisms to codify that, channel it and reward it. Amazon codified it in its very first and foremost Leadership Principle (“Customer Obsession”) - and then in little details like the word Customer instead of User. #amazon #customer #google #user

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Well said. The alarmism around AI replacing software engineers often overlooks the complexity of our role. While AI tools like Devin are impressive, they are assistants, not replacements. 𝟏. 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝟐. 𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐫 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧-𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬-𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝟑. 𝐔𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐱𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬. 𝟒. 𝐄𝐱𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧-𝐠𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. AI will definitely reshape our workflows, but it won't replace the need for skilled engineers. Instead, it may allow us to focus more on high-level problem-solving and innovation. Arvind Telharkar 👏

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How to Become the #1 SWE at Your Company. 👇 Most people believe you have to be more technically capable than any other engineer to be considered "the best," but they’re mistaken. Doing so is highly unlikely, because you'll be competing against a LOT of brilliant, analytical minds. But thankfully, there's a different path you can follow. To see it, we must first understand the concept of "skill stacking," coined by Scott Adams. Consider this example: If you want to be the best coder amongst 1000 engineers at your company, you have to be in the top 0.1%. That's a tall order. You might dedicate your whole career to that task and still never get there. But if you want to be the best coder who can also design distributed systems AND lead teams to implement them, you need only be in the top 10% of each skill. Mathematically, 1000 x 0.1^3 = 1000 x 0.001 = 1 Or, a higher proficiency in one skill might compensate for lower proficiency in another: 1000 x 0.2 x 0.1 x 0.05 = 1 The more things you're good at, the easier it is to be considered "the best" at that unique combination of talents. Thankfully, being a great software engineer isn't confined to a single skill stack. All SWEs will overlap on some stereotypical capabilities, like the ones bolded on your resume. But some of us will be better writers, persuasive speakers, or UX designers than others. The key is to look for complimentary skills that others in your shoes are unlikely to possess. Become proficient in these to set yourself apart in a league of your own. But we can take this one step further. If you truly want to become the #1 SWE at your company (think: CTO), you won't be able to do it alone. You'll be leading many teams of engineers, meaning your ability to ensure their success will be part of your own skill stack. So how do we give those teams the highest chance of success? We compose them of engineers with unique and complimentary skill stacks of their own. For example, you'll want one or two engineers who can optimize the observability of your systems, and others that really understand the infrastructure upon which they rely. You'd also need a couple engineers who are talented writers and presenters, so they're able to interface with other teams about technically complex topics. And so on. Whether you're designing your own skill stack or composing teams of them, think about which unique combinations of talents will set you apart. Then go cultivate those skills with intention. You can be great at many of them – not the best at any particular one – and still climb to the very top. P.S. What skills are you working on adding to your stack in 2024? Mine are already in the comments! #softwareengineering #programming #coding

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🔨 You're a senior software engineer. You know your stuff. But you are not being promoted or recognized, and you're not sure why. Being an amazing engineer will get you from entry level roles until senior. But beyond that you might run into snags that aren't as obvious as they should be. As you progress into more senior and principal roles, your leadership skills, including your ability to influence without authority become more and more important. This might include building trusted relationships across the organization, which is required to lead some critical initiatives. As a principal engineer you might be asked to lead an initiative that impacts all engineering teams. How will you get a group of smart and opinionated engineers to progress in the same direction? That requires teams to trust you. You may not always have a gavel. 👉🏾 Building an internal reputation is critical. Not just be known as a great engineer, but also a great collaborator who listens as much as brings opinions. 👉🏾 If this is where you are in your career, I'd love to chat more. Ping me below and/or send me a DM. I'd like to set you up with mentorship and the tools you need to be success--all free. #mentormesh #leadership #engineering

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Observation: 9/10 SWE's quit at “reading the docs”. Cut through the BS with this easy trick: Take action and build. Writing code is 100x easier than the docs make it sound. “Reading the docs” gave me crazy imposter syndrome: -Git -WPF -Kafka -OAuth -Angular -GraphQL -RabbitMQ -Kubernetes In ALL cases, I conquered my fears by building. Except for WPF. I gave up on that. And Kafka, that's for another day. Forcing yourself to build/code/deploy melts analysis paralysis. Then you'll say "oh that was pretty easy". Trust me, we aren't building rockets. Practice AND Study build true mastery.

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