Meet Sol Tran
Musings on management philosophy, life, and more
Welcome to my substack. Now that I am using a substack, I am going to make it my goal to write everyday (even if it doesn’t mean publishing everyday)
I used to blog starting back in high school, whether it was via my personal xanga, via Facebook Notes or via Tumblr, or even my school newspaper (I wrote for both my high school and college school newspapers), writing publicly isn’t new to me. That said, it has been many years since I have posted to the wild and I’m excited to get back to it.
My first topic is introducing you to myself: Who is Sol Tran.
I plan to follow up with some of the following topics:
My Engineering Management philosophy
Building a software engineering career in the age of AI
The Compounding Returns of Intelligence (a 3 part series:
1. As a software engineer 2. On myself 3. On Parenting)Code Reviewing: How to review code effectively
A Changing of the Guard: How boomers retiring is creating opportunity in SaaS
Engineering Leveling: What I look for in each level
Succeeding at becoming a Tech Lead
The Cheatsheet for the first time Engineering Manager
The 1 on 1. How to use this meeting to maximum impact
The many flavors of Staff Engineer and the path to them
Mistakes I have made as a Software Engineering Manager
How to execute on a long roadmap as an EM
Ship Fast and NOT breaking things (how to use monitoring to ensure things don’t stay broken)
Building a robust Job Framework that supports today’s engineering infrastructure needs
7 Fundamental beliefs that I hold that guide my life
Parenting in the upcoming age of AI
Some topics I want to cover that just would be fun to, but I probably won’t get to for a while :)
How to become an Airbnb Superhost and why I quit
Being a Landlord: How it’s been like for me and what flavor of landlord are you
This list will continue to grow, even as I write more because the topics to write on are endless. The world is dynamic and always changing. Most of what I write will be software engineering related, but it’ll expand into parenthood (given I am a father), personal growth, and more. I am a huge sports fan and also follow the markets, so you may see some thoughts on those fronts as well.
So who is Sol Tran. There’s many flavors to man. High level, I have been in Software Engineering for the past 11+ years, managing engineers in 4+ of them. I have managed individuals across the spectrum from EMs and Staff engineers all the way to new grads and interns. My career has spanned from being a Founding Engineer/first hire at ShipHawk to architecting the API/UI layer of a transition to a new cloud platform for Rubrik to being Director of Engineering at the premier NFT company in the world (Yuga Labs, aka the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club).
You can say I have experience scaling up startups, particularly in the SaaS and web3 space.
What am I up to right now? I am exploring opportunities and looking to discover the next chapter of my career. I am also tinkering on some startup ideas, particularly around SaaS and exploring generative AI.
Follow me to see more upcoming content!