Five Rules for High-Performing Software Engineers
Note: If you know me personally feel free to reach out for non-paywalled link
It still feels weird to say, but I’ve now been doing software engineering work at Google for over a year now. A lot of mentors and resources helped make that a reality. To pay it forward, I want to talk about four tips I keep in the back of my head as a software engineer. If you are an entry-level engineer like me, I think these tips could be especially relevant.
#1: The project success algorithm: design and familiarize and then implement and sell
This one is a mouthful, but I think I’ve put together a repeatable process for project success as an entry-level engineer.
At large technology companies, your engineering manager or Tech Lead will hand you a project to work on. The first step is to create a design document that outlines and prototypes your approach to solving the issue at hand. While putting together the design, I also recommend familiarizing yourself with the codebase by increasing the test coverage of the files your design will touch. Besides increasing testing, you could also refactor for readability or resolve TODOs. That way, you are already submitting code even as your design is getting approved. And once your design is in a good…
