矽谷大神來了｜Part2

next question this is something i do

want to ask personally okay so right now

i'm a senior level software engineer so

how do i become like a staff engineer or

you know what what distinguishes an

engineer from senior level to say you

know staff or principal level very very

hard question in there because the whole

thing is that i can tell you that i

don't see any standard definition out

there that says that well this is the

definition of a junior intermediate

senior staff like principal architect

like yadda yadda like i don't see it

anywhere but i guess like the years of

experience of the projects that you

worked on before kind of contribute to

that

so it does but at the same time how do

you measure this yeah because you can

have someone that works three years over

at a startup and like basically just

figure out everything themselves like on

a very technical level being able to do

machine learning architecture

infrastructure building a scalable dom

system

right and you can have someone who has

been staying at um some ecosystem no

offense and lego system

i may get in a lot of trouble for this

and work 10 years on a very specialized

project that has no idea how to do

database yeah yeah right in that case

who is um who is closer to a senior

engineer who is closer to a principal

engineer so when you're talking about

like senior level engineers um like like

you're on a certain level how do you

want to grow and get to the next thing

you have to understand what the next

thing is first at least have an idea of

what you want the next thing to be is it

that you foresee yourself to be a

evangelist

to go into the company and teach people

and build tools and teach people how to

use tools to become better and like more

efficient in that job is it that you

want to be able to lead teams

to actually show them and be able to

take on bigger and bigger projects is it

that you want to have more time spending

on specialization which i just said

about the microsystem again no offense

to get into like something that is like

very specific that requires a lot more

time to do

that's where your growth paths are going

to be and in different companies they

can all be called principal engineers

so the question is back to you is what

do you want

for your next step let's see right so so

think about that like if you're saying

that hey

i want to learn how to take on bigger

and bigger projects and my answer would

be that you should know that at some

point of time you're going to run out of

your like your physical tighten speed

it's not going to be able to do bigger

and bigger project at some some point of

time you will have to subcontract it out

to to delegate this stuff

in that case the first thing that you

should learn is how do i actually get a

team how do i actually start organizing

people so that in the group of us we can

actually build something

right yeah and i would say that like if

you're going to do that doing work

talking with your boss and actually

getting the opportunity to take on

bigger projects

while bringing on other people sometimes

easiest bring on interns yeah right

bring on interns bring on juniors at the

same time you learn how to teach you

learn how to manage you need learn how

to lead then you start growing and

getting bigger and bigger in terms of

science and getting enough feedback from

both management your peers and also the

people that are working on the that's

how i actually start off i see you know

majority of the time i will tell you

that like once i get to a certain level

a lot of times the feedback is directly

from people that i manage yeah right so

that makes sense yeah so would you say

like as usually progress is it the

coding skill or the hard skill itself is

not so important anymore focus should be

more on you know people skill and how

you manage projects and how you build

the team if you're talking about

proportion a lot of times that's true

but that's the answer of my previous

question goes it really depends on how

you want to grow

i'm still seeing like some really really

brilliant engineers you want me to lead

a team no i'm not going to do it i don't

want to like um i want to focus on

building and designing good systems and

like and they just end up being very

good at it they would still be able to

figure out how to define the work

but they would be paired up with project

managers that actually helped manage the

people

they would be the one that actually say

that this is the wrong map this is why

foresee and their expertise comes in

picking a very nebulous problem and

breaking it down

and that's their specialty and they're

still okay with that

right it doesn't mean that the more

experienced you are the the more you

have to have to um teach or like to to

manage and what not it would be great if

you do like it's awesome like that like

our society and our industry needs it

but if you want to you can focus on

doing something you specialize in stuff

like getting a phd like this doesn't

mean that you have to do like i'm i'm

specific you can choose whatever topic

you want i see ics so it's not really

just a singular path it's a lot of

things when you get to that level you

can specialize it depends on what you

want exactly at the end of the day is a

free market like nowadays i walk to

companies i don't try to get them to

like identify me as one thing or another

i present to them

what i know what i have what i can help

them with

and they decide if they want to buy it

or not i see right like my own products

the most important thing is like knowing

yourself on what you want to become and

trying to market that and see if there's

any like buyers

yes

sir

what do you care the most other than you

know the technical respect assuming the

person is you know technically strong

enough for the team it's a gripe that we

have like in um in software engineering

especially software engineering

interviews

a lot of companies that i go with like

um i go to even

you know some experience from that like

it's uh go in an interview and people

just keep throwing new technical

questions like um algorithmic questions

right given an array this size and this

stuff like figure it out and all that

stuff a smart person of a certain

experience would be able to find the

patterns and answer you those

but in work when you when you choose a

partner

right um for for starting a business

yeah or when you're building your team

what do you want them to be or someone i

can work with

something you can work with what does

that mean when someone i can trust

someone i can you know learn from

someone who is you know

genuine and smart understand yeah that's

something that i look forward in general

that is the most important thing right

someone that you can trust

right someone that you can learn from

right

the whole thing is that how do you

actually get that well first you need to

make sure that they're good at

communication if they suck at it it's

going to be a hell of a ride right like

if they can clearly articulate what they

are thinking and convey the idea to you

and back and forth right that's why i'm

looking for it

right like so so a lot of times like i

still use um these technical questions

and and like algorithms make questions

now things that are going to get harder

is going to be the next thing how do you

think that you can work with this person

that means that personality has to be

there yeah right i'm not just saying

that a boring personality or not like

i'm talking about like hey if we're

going to have a an argument are you

going to stand on your ground

when you're right and also being able to

listen when there is a discussion going

on or are you going to say that no i'm

right uh i don't care about any of you

guys like yada yada or are you going to

be backing down everything is kind of

like yes i'm junior i will listen to

everything you say happening right like

are you able to get a good conversation

a good sparring session happening right

so now for me interview is relatively

dynamic i'm trying to see if i can

actually poke them a little bit

and see how they respond

right see if they are going to be

dismissive seeing if they are actually

like listening

and actually understanding the

information and then regurgitating or

like disagreeing with the ideas

seeing how

much they are going to be willing to

actually do the feedback

so that's part of that yeah first thing

is about reliability um and that is

going to be extremely hard yeah how do

you know someone is going to be reliable

yeah when you're interviewing without

yeah you only spend like 30 minutes with

the person it's really hard exactly yeah

right yeah but generally there are

things that you have to you can rely on

some of the things actually is your

intuition

one of the strongest things that um

we

have to rely on is understanding our

intuition a lot of times what i have

seen is that people who are who have

great attention to detail

also hold great responsibility as

themselves i see is this a type of

person that you feel like that they see

a problem and they will own the problem

holy exactly

seeing that and like trying to do that a

lot has to come with pps experience as

well so when we talk about like hey tell

me about your like um your history about

like your previous work and whatnot get

into what situation talk about what

happened how did they handle it why did

they step up why did they not step up

what is the reaction what is their

feeling about a situation or the

situation that they're talking about and

from that you just clean more and more

of their personality

i believe that technology technical

capabilities i can train

right give me a smart person and i can

train them within x amount of months

and they will become capable

give me a lazy person and i will spend

more time working on the person then

i'll be doing work

a non-motivated person or

someone who actually let's just say not

a good personality match with me

it's not going to work out

because it's so much harder to actually

adjust personality yeah then it is two

are just technical capabilities

i see

right

you know a lot of my audience right in

asia right asian traditions like you're

growing up parents teachers to be humble

right

and it's very different over here let's

say you come here and then you start a

new career in

the u.s north america or silicon valley

right how do you kind of like balance

out and what advice would you give

people growing up in asia there is a

difference between knowing what you know

and being good at what you do and

bragging about it there is a fine line

about it yeah usually i cross that line

my apologies on that um the humility in

it

happens the easiest when you are genuine

if you are able to be more transparent

then people will understand you

let people understand you and when you

do that you get a lot more leeway i try

to communicate my intentions

and if they align or if they understand

it then people usually appreciate it

and that like alleviates a lot of

problems about like humility or or like

i'm i'm trying to be too like saying too

many stories well i still do that

that's a problem with canada no no no

i guess folks

but like

yeah i don't know if i answer your

questions it does yeah okay

when senai we met back in the days um he

was the mentor to help build the team i

was at and i was very fortunate um you

know to have said and found it very

helpful to have a mentor at earlier

stage of my career how would you help a

team to be more productive and you know

just generally make people happy and

motivated i don't know like in my

opinion i corrupted him

yes

the most important factor in a workplace

that makes people happy is empowerment

people being listened to and people

feeling that they are being trusted to

work on something that sense of

empowerment actually gives a lot of

satisfaction to people ownership is in

there but a lot of companies a lot of

teams they do this they say that here

you own this

right yeah but you should do it this way

this way this way oh don't do it like

this do it like this this this right

just telling people like exactly you own

this but no you don't really own this

right ownership

without um empowerment

it's just responsibility ownership is

actually both responsibility and

empowerment

right usually i tell my boss that if i

own a team i have the power to choose

who is in my team i have the power to

discipline

people in my team

i have the power to actually enable

people in my team and if i cannot do

that

then it's just responsibility blaming i

don't want to be a scapegoat i don't

want to set myself up and buy extension

setting the team that i built to be in

failure

so they have to understand what that

ownership empowerment responsibility

model is

generally is that and second part of it

is about having an open conversation

being able to be free with your thoughts

to feel comfortable

that you can actually say whatever you

want to say

if you disagree with something you are

going to be able to say it out if you

want something to be changed you can

raise it up

you eliminate the fear of like offending

someone and good ideas come out and

collaboration comes out

and

camaraderie comes out

those are the two things that i believe

are important i don't think that we can

actually utilize one methodology and

push it to everyone

i think that is the wrong thing like

standardization like doesn't what

doesn't work

if you're paying dollars for a good team

then you need to utilize those things by

recognizing how the niches

and different quirks each person has and

how to actually gear them and help them

to be successful while challenging them

to be growing i believe that when people

are happy at their work and they feel

like that they are growing they don't

feel like that they want to leave unless

you're grossly underpaying them right

but if they feel like that they are

happy they enjoy the people that they

are working with they are being

challenged at all times that they are

growing at all times they know that this

is the place for them oh cool um thank

you steve for joining us today and

i'm sure um this will give people pretty

good guidance and you know something to

think about right yeah yeah and i guess

i learned a lot today um if you find

this video helpful please give it a like

and subscribe and

uh if you have other questions that you

want to ask um just you know leave a

comment down below

and yeah um

i'll see you next time then

bye