You can be the best ML engineer in the world, but none of it matters if your team or your manager doesn’t trust you. Trust is the foundation of effective collaboration, promotions, and leadership. Without it, your best ideas won’t land, your projects will stall, and your contributions will go unnoticed.
So, how do you establish trust at work—especially when you’re new?
Trust accelerates everything. If your team trusts you, they’ll give you more autonomy, believe your estimates, and rely on your insights. If they don’t, every decision becomes an uphill battle.
I’ve had to build trust quickly at companies of all sizes, from Meta to small startups, and while the contexts were different, the core principles remained the same.
Three key behaviors establish trust:
Say what you will do, say what you are doing, say what you have done. If these are consistent, people will believe you.
Code is king. Get your hands dirty early and deliver tangible results.
Do not overstretch. Overcommitment erodes trust because missed deadlines compound over time.
When I needed to build trust fast at Meta, I leveraged our internal version of Facebook to document my progress. I would:
Post an initial plan outlining what I would do and when.
Share frequent updates on wins and setbacks (weekly or even more often).
Conclude with a final post linking back to earlier updates for full transparency.
This simple habit ensured my work was always visible, and no one ever had to wonder, What is Ilya actually doing?
At a small company where I was a hiring manager, we had people who always had great ideas and flashy demos but never had code I could actually read. One project had been “in progress” for three years, but when I finally got access, the first Git commit was three days old.
Transparency builds trust. Always link to the source of truth. Link to your code, your design docs, and your progress updates. Let people see your work.
I’ll be honest: I am currently overstretched. I’m in the final stages of putting together an ML System Design Interview Course on Taro (you can join Taro to be the first to see it), and it’s a few weeks behind schedule. Why? I committed to too many things.
We all do this. But doing it repeatedly damages trust. If you make a habit of missing deadlines, people stop believing your timelines. It’s better to commit to fewer things and deliver reliably than to say yes to everything and fall short.
Building trust isn’t about grand gestures. It’s about consistency, transparency, and delivery.
Communicate what you’re doing.
Back it up with real work.
Don’t overpromise.
Do this early and your whole career will be easier, do the opposite and it will be an uphill battle every day.
Trust takes time to build but seconds to break. Guard it carefully.
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