Public speaking at FAANG
At Capital One, selling (public speaking, putting anything you do in the recognition slack channels, conferences, etc.) matters more than actual engineering by a large margin. There is a ton of vaporware and entire management chains are completely disconnected from the work their teams are doing if they aren’t presented in a 20 min demo/speech. Whoever does the presentation gets a bulk of the credit. An engineer on my team that is nice, but completely incompetent is being promoted and it drives me mad. Is it like this at tech companies? I’m not good at public speaking. I have pretty bad anxiety around it when it’s formalized in a PowerPoint monologue type thing. I want to join toastmasters, but to be honest, I’m a little scared of even that. I’ve been leetcoding like crazy to get into FAANG and I think I’m almost ready technically, but I’m wondering if constantly speaking in front of large groups is required of engineers and if my inability to do so would get me PIP’d/fired quickly. I have no qualms about any other part of the job. I’m confident in my engineering ability, relationships with teammates and manager, communication skills in smaller meetings, etc, but when I’m in front of large groups (say 25+) I somehow manage to say things I don’t mean or blank out or get visibly nervous or talk fast, etc. It’s embarrassing and I get frustrated at myself, but at the same time I feel like I’m getting a raw deal because I’m an engineer not a sales/business person. Why is this what determines my rating when I’ve delivered great work all year and communicated well in all other forums as needed. Appreciate any insight.
My experience so far is that everyone gets the credit they deserve (blame is less fairly apportioned). People do make an effort to call out that so-and-so did X. This is especially true of the senior engineers, as the more junior engineers may not typically have the necessary visibility to share about the work they did.
Join toastmasters if you're already thinking about it. It's a great way to get over being nervous. They will ease you into it at your own pace and there are no consequences.
Good communication is a must in tech world too, whether you agree or not. So, get your act together and start working on it. Toastmasters is a great start. It has done me f****** wonders.
I’m told that Amazon is a “writing culture”. They’ll dedicate the first 20 minutes of a meeting to sitting silently and reading your multi-page brief.
I would love that
Amazon is writing culture, 6 pager, with artifacts in appendix and then prepare to get input, questions and many iterations before and after. You can adopt this style, bring your ideas and try to have them read it and then have your short preso to good if required at Captial one. They seem to have adopted a devops culture and move towards all cloud play. Do you not thinking you can impact and influence culture?
Dude. Practice makes you perfect. Join toastmasters asap. You will feel welcomed there. Don’t be afraid of toastmasters.
Don’t be afraid of toastmasters! I used to be very nervous and awkward too, but it just takes practice + knowing your stuff, and the confidence will come with time. It’s not just a “sales/business person skill” - in general, you are way more valuable to a company if you can successfully communicate with more people than just your small team
1. Develop a style of your own 2. Get expertise over subject matter of presentation 3. Practice well, maybe work on a script Needed steps to get confidence for people who don’t have the gab gift