Interview with Nick Cosentino

Please introduce yourself.

Nick Cosentino, principal software engineering manager at Microsoft. 20+ years programming, 14 years developing software professionally, and 12 years managing engineering teams.

What first sparked your interest in software engineering?

I wanted to make games when I was a kid. Once I realized I could write code, it felt like an unlimited supply of Lego bricks!

Can you share your journey from being a software developer to becoming a Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft?

• University of Waterloo, 6 internships (totalling 2 full years of work)
• Joined a digital forensics startup right after school
• Became an EM within months but still wrote code
• Company scaled to hundreds of employees
• Joined Microsoft as a principal EM in Substrate Deployment
• Earlier this year, moved to Substrate routing and firewall team

What were some of the greatest challenges you faced early in your career, and how did you overcome them?

Balancing individual contribution and leading teams. I “solved” this very ineffectively: I worked 60-80 hour weeks for years. By the time I left Magnet Forensics I knew I had more impact by not writing code myself.

How has working at both startups and large companies like Microsoft shaped your approach to software engineering?

You really appreciate “get it good enough” while at a start-up. Things move EXTREMELY fast. You won't have perfect code, and it doesn't matter because you might be throwing it out anyway. When you get into big tech, the pace is MUCH slower, so you need to be more effective at cross-functional team work. The scale of what you do is also orders of magnitude bigger!

What inspired you to create Dev Leader newsletter, and what do you hope to achieve with it?

Originally, the “Dev Leader” concept was something I started in 2013 to learn in public as a new engineering manager. I blogged, but gave up a few months in because it felt like there was no audience. With my newsletter, blog, videos, and general content creation, my goal is just to help others be pragmatic in their software engineering and try to simplify otherwise complex topics.

How do you balance your role at Microsoft with your content creation and mentoring activities?

You saw earlier I'm not great with balance, right? 🙂 I generally overstretch myself… but I’ve systemized my content creation process to help streamline activities significantly. I'm now able to create 3 tutorial videos per week, stream for 4 hours, do an interview video, and write a newsletter on top of my daily posts. If I wasn't coding BrandGhost, I would be back to writing 6 blog posts weekly too.

What are the key qualities you believe are essential for success in software engineering?

• Problem-solving
• Communication and collaboration
• Analysis, data driven, and pragmatism
• Growth mindset

Can you describe a time when you faced a major setback in your career and how you dealt with it?

Moving to Microsoft on paper looks like a big step forward, but in hindsight this has been the biggest financial cost of my life AND a career setback. The previous company I was at went public, then got bought back to private for 2 billion dollars. I'd never have to work again in my life. I was also on track to become one of their first roles that would lead into a technical director position. So staying there in hindsight would have been financial independence and a much higher level role than where I'm at. How am I dealing with it? By investing into myself more than I ever have in my life.

How important is mentorship in the tech industry, and what has been your experience with it?

I think it can be incredibly valuable if you find the right mentor (s). I've historically never leaned into this, and I should start taking my own advice.

Can you explain the benefits of joining your private Discord community for software engineers?

I get a TON of DMs across platforms and cannot keep up - so I prioritize dedicated Q and A in Discord so others in there and learn as well!

What can participants expect from your free and paid courses?

Currently, my free course is just a primer that anyone can start software development. My paid for courses are much like my YouTube, but more like a 5-6+ hour dedicated playlist with tailored topics.

Can you share a bit about how you approach continuous learning and staying updated with new technologies?

I always make sure I'm building something on the side. I tried a nutrition platform SaaS before, that failed. Now I'm working on BrandGhost. I also find learning in public helps a ton for solidifying concepts.

How do you integrate feedback from your community into your work?

I'm always open to improvements about explaining things more clearly or covering topics I haven't done yet. The goal is to create content that people want!

For those interested in your mentorship or courses, what are the first steps they should take?

I suggest starting with my articles and videos. They're totally free, no barriers. I also suggest people try building things as well. Use my resources to get unstuck. The courses are a way to be accountable for your learning, but I would never make a false promise that a single course will make someone an expert.

Recently, a new course has become available, produced in collaboration with Ryan Murphy. What inspired you to tackle the topic of behavioural interviewing?

Ryan and I have been going back and forth for a while on areas that we'd both like to add value to for our audiences. Something that we're both really passionate about is career growth – not only for individuals focused on an IC track, but also for those who want to grow as managers.

We partnered with Dometrain to bring our first of many courses that will focus on career growth from a manager's perspective. Our first one, Nailing the Behavioral Interview in Big Tech, aims to help individuals looking to get into the industry or switch roles into Big Tech.

In our course, we wanted to ensure we could discuss the behavioral interview portion. There are countless resources available online for the technical aspects of interviews – coding and system design – but as software engineers, we have a bad habit of hyper-focusing only on the technical part.

What advice would you give to software engineers who are just starting out?

Focus on soft skills. Do it early. You'll be light-years ahead of others, and it'll be very noticeable.