Hello friends,
I am really grateful for this community and the support it offers. After so much procrastination and imposter syndrome i am ready to go on this journey. Please can you help review my draft documents for submission. @Francisca_Chiedu@alexnk@May@Maya@igortsk@Afolabi@Chaitanya_Bapat
For context: Software engineer with 4 years experience working in product led companies, i haven’t had so much contribution to projects outside work
Recommendation Letters
Letter from senior exec from CompanyA
Letter from senior VP from CompanyB
Letter from senior manager from CompanyB
Mandatory Criteria:
Recommendation Letter from a senior manager in CompanyB → emphasises on my role in productA
Recommendation Letter from exec in CompanyA → led the growth and development of a product inside the company. Emphasises on my leadership, and mentorship within the team.
Acceptance and Invitation to come speak at a global conference (>3000 people), unfortunately the event timeline wasn’t okay for me.
Proof of high salary and salary increase.
End of year performance review from companyB.
Optional 1:
Work on innovative product for CompanyA that received backing from the state government:
I was the lead engineer for the project, as proof i will get a letter from an exec at the company about my contributions.
I will also include my git contributions.
Work on two innovative products for companyB, first time the company was entering a new market/ecosystem:
I was the lead engineer for these products, as proof of my leadership:
I will get a letter from a senior manager about my contributions
I will include my git contributions.
Evidence of these products and their revenue and user traction:
I am not sure if the company would like to share the revenue and user counts but I will ask anyway.
Optional 3:
Document detailing my contributions to CompanyA and impact (including screenshots) and reference letter by a senior manager at the same company that witnessed my work
worked as a key engineer in the core product of companyA, showing evidence as to how i contributed to its success. I also want to add a link to my GitHub contribution graph during my time at the company.
Another document detailing my contribution to CompanyB and impact report showing high percentage revenue increase on the products i worked on) . I also want to add a link to my GitHub contribution graph during my time at the company.
Repeat of same work contract/high salary evidence I provided in MC above.
Your MC is leaning too heavily on reference letters, try and get more evidence.
You need to speak at the conference to have it count, just being accepted isn’t enough.
Internal company rewards may not be accepted
OC1 is about your personal innovation and is sometimes hard to prove. Can you detail and back up with evidence innovation that you’ve done?
OC3: you can repeat the same evidence as MC - each evidence should be unique.
In MC, for the first two instead of pure reference letters, you can instead create documents, flows, diagrams describing the product, your contribution, the impact in 1.5 pages followed by using the rest 1.5 pages for the reference letters. Your speaking invite won’t count much (actual participation counts) hence try to strengthen the first two evidences here more.
In OC1, structure of evidences looks fine but ensure you show “your” contribution to the innovation and not fall in the space where it seems like you were part of an innovation the company or someone else in the company was driving. Demonstrate how were these innovations your brainchild and the reference letter should speak about it.
Thanks a lot @hsafra@pahuja , I will take on your advice and correctly modify. For OC1, I am finding it difficult drawing the line between my innovation and the innovation of the company. I mean the product idea was the company’s brainchild but its development and maintenance is mine
Did you provide any research, data insights, consumer insights etc that led to the team coming up with this innovation? Anything that you contributed towards the decision of building this innovative product? (Will also need to be referenced in support letter)
Showcase why were you chosen to lead these innovative product projects
Any mention of perhaps the initial product plan being X and eventually due to some more insights from you, a modification to the product direction for good?
Thanks a lot @pahuja , from a developer standpoint it might be difficult proving I did the research or customer insights for the product, I might find a way around it. Most of the decisions I made were “development” decisions not necessarily research or customer research. This is the second iteration of the project and I am the lead for both iterations, the company had to put a halt to the first because of some policies and management decisions.
Maybe what I can talk about is why I was retained as the lead developer for the first and second iteration, this will also be backed up by references. I don’t know how much weight that weight carry, what do you think
Note that reference letter provided for MC is not sufficient enough as this is clearly stated in the guidelines. Did you attend the global conference you were invited to speak at? If yes, do you have an evidence to support this, like an invitation email and appreciation letter stating the impact of your speech, news clippings? Are the attendees more than 100, and can you evidence this as well? I will suggest you carefully go through the guidelines and get piece of evidence that aligns with the guidelines of the TechNation.
