SoFi Career Growth & Development

What makes your role now a dream job? What do you get to do that you didn’t at other companies? 

As the engineering director of mobile at SoFi, my current role is truly a dream job. It offers a significant opportunity to lead a large consumer application at a rapidly expanding public company. Unlike my previous company, which had a massive mobile team and codebase that was slower to work on, SoFi’s smaller size allows for the rapid implementation of new ideas, similar to a startup environment. Simultaneously, we have a large, and growing user base and hundreds of new features being built which presents exciting opportunities to work on scaling our products. 

I have found that leadership and engineers are more than willing to adopt new technologies and best practices, so coming from a bigger company, I’ve been able to apply my knowledge and teach people new skills.

What do you think helped you land the job? Were you able to bring any special expertise or project experience that SoFi found valuable?

SoFi is in a rapid growth phase, as we recently went public and have been building many “zero-to-one” features from the ground up. Looking forward, we are going to have exciting challenges scaling the company to millions of new customers and hundreds of new features. Our codebase and systems will need to scale quickly to accommodate this exponential growth. 

I was fortunate enough to be with Uber for 10 years from the early startup days to what it is today. I learned a lot about scaling large consumer mobile apps, having led mobile platforms teams for both the Uber Rides and Uber Eats, which definitely helped me land the job.

What do you think helps engineers move up quickly or be the top pick for a competitive employer? What should engineers seek out if they hope to move up or be hired by their “dream” company?

Engineers who are growing in their careers should first and foremost focus on mastery of their craft. They should focus on learning from the best, reading all the books, watching tech talks, and diving into open-source projects. Keeping up the date on where the industry is going and using your spare time to learn new technologies and platforms will keep you in the loop.

As engineers move up in seniority, they should look to take on as much responsibility as they can and stretch themselves beyond their comfort zones. As AI starts to write more and more of the code, leadership skills will become a differentiator. Learn how to lead others and get projects completed consistently and efficiently.

And lastly, communication skills are critical, especially in more senior roles. Learn how to write well and express ideas concisely and clearly. Being able to present well to peers and leaders to persuade people of your ideas will lead to more of your ideas being heard and adopted. In a nutshell, invest in your soft skills.