Alas, I wish I had good advice here, but honestly, I just got extremely lucky. When I first got hired (at a very small startup) the hiring manager was an utter

Alas, I wish I had good advice here, but honestly, I just got extremely lucky. When I first got hired (at a very small startup) the hiring manager was an utterly brilliant former Bell Labs guy who'd made his way through a couple of prior startups, and he served as a mentor of mine for many many years after.