AI Adoption for Individuals (ICs) with

AI is quickly becoming a baseline skill - not a bonus. This session is designed to help individual contributors (engineers, PMs, designers, data professionals, etc.) actually use AI in their day-to-day work, not just experiment with it.

We’ll focus on practical, high-leverage ways to integrate AI into your workflow so you can move faster, produce higher-quality work, and stay competitive.

Example topics we'll cover:
- Understanding the latest capabilities of AI tools
- Identifying where AI can meaningfully improve your current workflow
- Prompting strategies that go beyond basic usage
- Real examples in your domain (coding, product thinking, writing, analysis, etc.)

Hi, I'm Rick! With over 10 years as a Software Engineer at FAANG companies and startups, I specialize in Backend Distributed Systems and have a broad skill set in various technologies. I've also founded two startups. In the past, I mentored many engineers/non-engineers through work, volunteering, and bootcamps, focusing on career planning, learning new technologies, and interview preparation.

My mentorships are personalized to each mentee's goals. I offer 3 plans for different mentorship needs:
Lite Plan
- Focusing on discussing career questions. We'll have bi-weekly 30-min calls to catch up and use chat for async conversation.
- Ideal mentee: someone who needs guidance on the career topics (interaction with teammate/manager, choosing the right project, getting promoted, switching teams/companies, job search strategies, etc.)

Standard Plan
- Focusing on heavier technical topics and hands-on work. We’ll come with up a plan for achieving your goals. I’ll provide all the support needed for executing the plan. We'll have bi-weekly 60-min calls to address open questions or work on specific items of the plan (technical discussion, system design, PR review, mock interview, resume review, etc.)
- Ideal mentee: someone who is looking for a job change, trying to switch track, becoming a stronger engineer, learning new technologies, or switching from a non-tech role to a tech role.

Pro Plan
- This plan is for mentees who need a dedicated coach for timely needs, such as active job search, startup bootstrapping, and technical reviews.

Notes:
1. I’m located at the PST time zone and generally only available at night time.
2. I will not provide any Netflix-specific interview preparation.