Key Takeaways from the Two Books That Helped Me Grow From Senior Engineer to Staff Engineer
The Staff Engineer’s Path & Staff Engineer are two books that gave me a roadmap to grow beyond Senior level.
The Staff Engineer’s Path & Staff Engineer are two books that gave me a roadmap to grow beyond Senior level.
They were both terrific and share a few core ideas.
Here were my biggest takeaways for engineers looking to grow:
BE THE GLUE
Teams can get stuck optimizing for themselves.
Being the glue means taking in the context across teams and even departments. It means seeing the shared problems and working with these folks to find a common solution. This avoids duplication of effort for an organization.
Credit to Tanya for coining this term.
DEFINE THE PROBLEM
Messy problems are vague, vague problems don’t get solved.
Before building anything you need to define the problem. Set the boundaries, limit the scope, and get clear on the deliverable. Define done before starting.
With a clear problem defined, then go research, get feedback, and present the tradeoffs.
PRIORITIZE
Your time is finite, learn to defend it and be deliberate with what you focus on.
Avoid “snacking”, doing low impact, easy, visible work. If you need to say no, explain why you can’t do it. Think of the opportunity cost for doing something over another. Ask yourself, “is this the best use of my time or can someone else grow here?”
I like asking “what’s most important now?” throughout the day to keep me focused.
SCALE THROUGH WRITING
The more senior you become, the more you will work with other people.
To be effective you will need to share information from your brain to other people’s brains. Do this through clear and concise writing. Write down decisions that explain your thinking. Give people the context and the why, this enables them to make decisions on their own.
Be clear and opinionated when you write, wrong gets corrected quick.
GROW OTHERS
Strive to be an engineer people want to work with.
Spend time mentoring others. When a new task is on your plate, first think “who can be grown by this work?” If someone comes to you for help, ask them what they think the solution is before helping.
The higher up you go, the more you should focus on growing the people around you.
I hope this was helpful!
What books made a difference in your career?
