Hey ,

Last year, I interviewed at a San Francisco

based startup. They needed a Founding Full
stack Engineer.

After I applied, I had 4 meetings with the team.

They completely skipped the coding interview
because of my Github.

They loved me. They offered me $120k/yr and

some equity. I told them it's too small.

They raised the offer to $160k/yr. But because I

wasn't too happy with their culture and attempt
to pay me less, I declined the offer.

03:16 alLTE19

Frantz<>

29Mar2022

HiFrantz,I'dlovetofindsometimetotalkwithyouaboutcompensatio...

31Mar2022
HiFrantz,Thanksforgettingbacktome.Ireallyappreciateyoursince...

me5Apr2022

tok Iv

Hi

Iappreciateyouraisingyouroffer.I'vedelayedreplying
becauseIhavenothingbutgoodthingstosayaboutyouand
yourteam,andit'saverytoughdecisionformetodecideto
moveontosomethingelse.Honestly,somethingaboutnot
offeringwhatIasked,thenofferingitlaterdoesn'treallysit
rightwithme.

It'sjustapersonalviewIhaveaboutallthis.

Youareextremelyamazing,andyourteamisalsoreally
amazing,butIwon'tbejoiningatthistime.

Thankyouverymuchforyourtimeandpatience.

Wishingyouallthebestandwillbekeepingclosetabson
how progressesinthespace.

Bestregards,
Frantz

Reply Forward

The next month after that I accepted a $130k/yr

offer from another company.

I didn't share this to brag.

I want to show you that even in a down economy

with no jobs, some people are still in high
demand and can afford to be picky.

How did I get here ? It was intentional and took

a lot of hard work.

When you're junior or mid level, this tech

industry does not respect you too much. When
you become senior, they start asking you how
much you want to make.

Your goal in tech should be to become senior as

soon as possible.

Becoming a senior engineer comes in two ways:

either you get promoted to senior, or land a job
as a senior.

Today, I'm going to show you 4 practical steps

to speed up your career and become a senior
engineer.

1. Adopt big picture thinking

As a junior developer, all you care about is

submitting your task for review and having it
approved.

You wait until a senior or product manager tells

you what to do next.

This is nice, and even very comfortable. But

that's why you're paid the small bucks, because
you take on much less responsibility.

As a senior, you need to understand three

things:

1. Where the business you work for is going

2. How the business plans to get there
3. How the engineering team will help in
achieving that goal

This means you'll have to seek this knowledge,

by asking important questions.

Guess what. You can start doing this today,

irrespective of your level.

Ask your team lead or CTO what's next on the

agenda. Ask them to explain to you why they
made certain architectural decisions.

Seek understanding of the entire picture. You

can't create big impact if you don't understand
how everything works together.

Worry about much more than the task you're

working on.

Think about your team. What can I contribute,

no matter how small to make this team better?

It could be as little as adding prettier, or as big

as recommending a migration to Vercel for
performance.

This takes time and being intentional. Those

who seek will find. If you're looking for ways to
improve your team and company, you'll find
them.

2. Become a technical wizard

During my first 2 years as a developer, I created

a Udemy course. At one time, it was the most
popular Laravel course on the platform.

This is because I had a great understanding of

the concepts I learned.

I wasn't only interested in doing my job. I

needed to be a subject matter expert of
everything I ever learned.

I would spend hours researching specific topics.

Sometimes, I get lost on my phone reading
documentation.

I also began to care about the four pillars of

healthy code. This was the subject of a previous
growth letter, so you can check it out here.

Invest in the best training material. No more

introduction courses. More courses about
advanced testing, design patterns, and
architectures.

The types of projects you build too should

improve. Start by creating your own version of
your favourite NPM package.

I remember in 2018 when I built a Redux clone

and showed every one of my coworkers.

I had an extreme and unconventional passion to

be better.

Today, I still take courses and learn impactful

things every day.

You command respect as a senior when you

code like a wizard.

3. Master communication

When you're a junior or mid level, someone will

message you asking for the progress on your
task.

As a senior engineer, anyone messaging you is

already disappointed.

Remember the fastest way to being a senior is

to act like a senior.

LinkedIn has free and great online courses on

how to upgrade your communication game.
Take them.

Be proactive about following up, sharing

feedback and asking for what you need.

Show up to meetings on time, communicate

when you can't make it.

The little things matter. Give an update every 24

hours on what you're working on, whether
you're asked or not.

Communication is the most important skill you

can gain for your career. Start practicing great
communication and see how it takes you to the
next level.

4. Market yourself as a senior

Someone asked me what my strongest skill is as

a developer. Even though I'm a coding wizard,
you don't need to have as much technical
knowledge as I do to succeed.

My biggest skill by far is my ability to

communicate, and use that ability to market
myself.

First of all, I DO and BUILD a lot. This gives me a

ton of technical experience, and a lot of senior
evidence too.

Here are some things that I do every week:

I write articles that talk about senior level

topics like growth, testing, security.
I create online courses that train
developers on senior topics
I join and take part in communities like
Auth0 ambassadors.
I run a weekly newsletter.
I mentor junior developers
I contribute to open source

To market, you need to build your products. And

the list above is a list of some of my products.

Next, I sell these wherever I am.

During an interview, I mention the numbers I got

from doing all these like how many views my
videos got.

I talk about the impact I had. I explain how I

demonstrated big picture thinking and technical
wizardry.

This is capitalism. You are in extremely high

competition, and you have to learn the art of
selling yourself to stand out.

Here's what I hear other developers say: I used

React and Vercel.

Here's what I say:

I performed a performance
evaluation using Lighthouse and
noticed some bottlenecks. I
recommended a migration to
Vercel and we saw a 70%
increase in performance. This
led to a 30% increase in average
time on site, and more
customers.

That's how you sell yourself. Do senior stuff, sell

yourself as a senior.

I leave you with these parting words:

If you want to become a senior,

start being a senior. Be a senior
everyday, and soon someone will
pay you for being a senior.

Online version • Unsubscribe

Sent by Frantz Kati