Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. Last month I interviewed someone who solved every question I asked. Clean code. Good structure. Explained the approach before writing it. I wrote "No Hire." Not because the answers were wrong.Because I couldn't tell if this person could think or just prepared well. Here's what most candidates don't know. After your interview ends, I open a form. At Google it was...
27 days ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. This is The Unwritten Rules #4: a 4-part series where I share the career rules that exist but nobody shared them with you. What do you think matters MOST in the final interview round? Coding skills System design depth Cultural fit Communication skills I wait until the last 10 minutes of every interview. The candidate has done their coding round. Their system...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. This is The Unwritten Rules #3: a 4-part series where I share the career rules that exist but nobody shared them with you. What do you think matters MOST in the final interview round? Coding skills System design depth Cultural fit Communication skills Last month, I gave two candidates the same debugging problem. A piece of code with a subtle concurrency bug....
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. This is The Unwritten Rules #2: a 4-part series where I share the career rules that exist but nobody shared them with you. What do you think matters MOST in the final interview round? Coding skills System design depth Cultural fit Communication skills Last quarter, I interviewed 11 candidates for a senior backend role. I asked all of them: "Design a URL...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. This is The Unwritten Rules #1: a 4-part series where I share the career rules that exist but nobody shared them with you. A reader replied to my newsletter last month. "200+ applications. 4 months. 6 callbacks. 0 offers. What am I doing wrong?" What do you think matters MOST in the final interview round? Coding skills System design depth Cultural fit...
3 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. You spent 3 months on the analytics dashboard. Nights. Weekends. Shipped perfectly. Promotion cycle: Not mentioned. Your peer wrote a design doc in 2 weeks. Got promoted to Staff. I've reviewed 47 promotion packets. Pattern is clear: Only 4 types of projects get you promoted. THE 4 PROJECTS THAT MATTER 1. Multiplier Projects Make your team 2x more effective....
5 months ago • 2 min read
Hey Reader, Welcome back to Guided Growth where we talk about the skills that accelerate your career beyond just writing great code. In August of 2025, I interviewed 3 engineers that I’d have hired in 2023. Same experience. Same fundamentals. Strong system design. All three got rejected. Not because they couldn’t code. Because, when I asked how they use AI in their daily work, the response was the same three times: “I have been wanting to go explore that.” Meaning to. For two years....
6 months ago • 1 min read
Hey Reader, Have you ever seen a situation where 2 engineers have identical experience but one consistently gets way better offers than the other? I have. In fact, I’ve been on both sides of it. Before 2023, I had watched engineers with less experience get interviews I couldn’t land. No difference in skills, but LinkedIn profiles. Then I grew my LinkedIn from 5K to 160K+ followers in 2 years. I stopped writing like a resume and started positioning for impact. Within months, recruiters with...
7 months ago • 4 min read
Hey Reader, Today, I am revealing the system I wish someone taught me while I was at 4.25 LPA. My friend Sagar called me last night. "Abhishek, be honest. ₹14 LPA at TCS. Bangalore rent. EMIs. Parents asking for money. I save maybe ₹3L a year. How the hell am I supposed to become a millionaire?" I told him the truth: "You're asking the wrong question." The question isn't "how do I save more?" The question is: "How do I think like someone who will have ₹2 Crores by 45?" Because Sagar will...
8 months ago • 9 min read