Our coaching is led by founder Ran Magen, who led engineering work at Twitter, AWS, Apollo GraphQL and Coinbase and interviewed candidates for senior and staff-level roles at each of them. We coach engineers on getting those jobs and on doing them well.
Each one comes down to the same thing: knowing what the people evaluating you are looking for, and showing it.
You want to practice with someone who has sat on the other side of that loop and written the feedback that decides the outcome.
Your work is good, but the promotion case is not landing. Usually the gap is scope, visibility, or how the work is written up.
The job changed from writing code to getting a group to make good decisions. Nobody explained how that part works.
You want your tech leads coached, your interviewers trained, or an interview loop that gives you a clearer hiring signal.
Every engagement starts from your goal and your deadline. These are the pieces we combine.
Full-length coding, system design, behavioral and hiring-manager rounds at senior, staff and principal level. Afterwards you get the written feedback an interviewer would submit, and what to change before the real one.
INTERVIEW PREPARATIONRealistic design problems with the follow-up questions interviewers ask. We work on structuring an answer, choosing trade-offs out loud, and going deep where it counts.
SYSTEM DESIGNLeading without authority, writing design documents people act on, running cross-team decisions, and picking the problems that matter to the company.
TECHNICAL LEADERSHIPChoosing scope that reads as the next level, documenting impact as you go, and understanding how a calibration committee reads a promotion packet.
CAREER GROWTHA plan for your first months: setting technical direction, delegating, giving feedback, and staying useful when you write less code.
FIRST-TIME LEADERSFor companies: coaching for your tech leads, interviewer training, and a review of your interview loop and leveling rubric.
FOR COMPANIESI’m Ran Magen, and I lead our coaching. I worked at the levels we coach for, at companies whose interview loops and promotion processes the rest of the industry copies. At Coinbase I also mentored engineers through promotions and took part in calibrations.
An AI learning app for kids. I run the technical side of the company: the Go backend, the cloud infrastructure, and how we ship.
I build, launch and support products with paying customers, Lemonvite among them, and I lead every client project. It taught me what engineering work a business needs.
I was the technical lead for backend engineering productivity. I led the migration to GraphQL Federation, set Protobuf standards across more than 700 repositories, and founded the Server Foundations Guild.
I worked on backend infrastructure and Federation, and wrote the next-generation Federation gateway in Rust.
I built AWS Elemental MediaConnect, a live video transport service, from its first line of code.
I was the tech lead for Timelines infrastructure: Home, Profile and Notifications. I owned tweet fanout, the system that writes each new tweet into its followers’ timelines, for hundreds of millions of users.
I built distributed systems at Dapper (acquired by Yahoo), my6sense, and Worklight (acquired by IBM), after eight years building for the web.
You tell us the role or the goal, the timeline, and what has and has not worked so far. We tell you honestly whether we can help.
We send a short written plan: what we will work on, in what order, how many sessions we expect, and the price.
We meet 1:1 over video. Mock interviews run at full length under real conditions. You get written notes after every session.
We review your resume, design documents, promotion packet or take-home work by email, so session time goes to practice.
Something else? Write to ran@lemonberrylabs.com.
Software engineers from senior level up, engineers moving into a tech lead or engineering manager role, and companies that want their leads coached or their interviewers trained. If you are earlier in your career, write to us anyway and we will tell you whether we are the right fit.
Senior, staff and principal engineer roles, and engineering manager roles with a technical bar. We cover coding, system design, behavioral and leadership rounds, and hiring-manager conversations.
We prepare you for the loop format that large technology companies share, and we adjust for what a company publishes about its own process. Our founder interviewed at Twitter, AWS, Apollo GraphQL and Coinbase. We do not share any company's confidential questions or rubrics.
1:1 over video, with a shared editor or whiteboard for coding and design rounds. You get written notes after every session, and we review documents by email between sessions.
It depends on the format: a single mock interview, a multi-week preparation plan, or ongoing leadership coaching. Send us your goal and timeline and we will reply with options and prices.
No, and you should be careful with anyone who does. What we can do is show you how you are being evaluated, give you honest feedback against that bar, and give you enough practice that the real thing is familiar.
Yes. Companies hire us to coach tech leads and new managers, train interviewers, and review interview loops and leveling rubrics.
Backend systems, infrastructure, web front ends, AI integrations, Mac apps and mobile apps.
ALSO FROM THE STUDIOAI workflows that take over the repetitive work in your business, with a person approving what needs judgment.
The role, the timeline, and where you feel least ready. We reply to every message personally.
Or write to ran@lemonberrylabs.com.