Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track - Book Notes
Tags: career, computerscience, leadership, books
Published: 2023-02-11 14:19:15

I recently read Will Larson's book Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track. As the name suggests, the book covers a career alternative for more senior engineers that don't feel comfortable with management positions and still want to be involved in complex technical problems. Besides being a broad role with responsibilities varying from company to company, the book defines some key archetypes and develops along the chapters what is a job description for each of them.

I discovered this book after listening to the amazing podcast [Staff+](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ul37YJskNvt7oJfRFSk0Z?si=e4be6c006a1a4a53), presented by [Paulo Vasconcellos](https://twitter.com/paulo_zip), [Marlesson Santana](https://twitter.com/marlesson), and [Flavio Clesio](https://twitter.com/flavioclesio), talking about this new technical path for engineers. The whole conversation grabs my attention because I don't see the management track as a good path for me since the beginning of my career.


## Overview

Difficulty in finding resources for professionals above senior software developers
Very mysterious notion of impact for more senior engineers
If you want to advance in your career without becoming a conventional manager/manager?

Four Staff+ archetypes
* **Tech Lead**: guides the approach and execution of a particular team
* **Architect**: responsible for the direction, quality and approach within a critical area
* Solver: digs deep into arbitrary complex problems and finds and appropriate path forward
* **Right Hand**: Expands the attention of an executive by lending his scope and authority to operate particularly complex organizations.

## What do Staff Engs actually do?
- It depends a lot on the team's needs and the engineer's strengths.
- Work on strategic projects and bring technical design while helping the progress of the team.
- Senior SE + setting & editing technical direction, mentorship and adding engineering context to organizational decisions.
- Does not have to be a hero and solve everything: the main goal is to help the team evolve.
- Balance between mentorship and sponsorship.
- Staff+ will often be in organizational decision-making rooms: it's time to bring engineering context to the table.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/v20nelwvgdlyk68eksyj.png)

## Operating at Staff
- write an engineering strategy
- Keep aligned with authority positions
- blend your vision with others
- create space for others

### Important takes 
* more senior -> less time to accomplish tasks
* avoid snacking -> do easy low-impact tasks
* avoid preening -> do easy high visibility tasks
* avoid chasing ghosts -> do low-impact but very complex tasks


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/grh18w4skbnirbtc542t.png)

### Managing technical quality
- Maintain technical quality and business deliveries
- Accountability
- System Thinking 
- data models tolerant to evolution
- technical vectors : Create technical decisions with vectors that point in the same direction
  * Give direct feedback when someone acts out of alignment with the planned approach
  * Redefine the engineering strategy
  * Communicate your approach from existing and future processes/tools.
  * onboarding process
  * Conway's Law: organizations build software that reflects their structure.
 * points to consider in the quality definition
- to lead you have to follow: not only to adopt good practices, but also to share them with the teams
- never be wrong without creating a bad ambient, be right while creating space for others


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/j2m1gm35ybhf21czf6mz.png)


### Creating space for others
- ask the right questions to avoid missteps
- bring everyone to the table
- take notes
- does not need to ponder over absolutely everything
- sponsorship: Promote that person, give visibility, opportunity, advice, context, but the final responsibility lies with the person.

### Build Network of peers
- be easy to find
- be visible
- internal networks - within squads, for example

### Present to executives
- from a certain point in your career, what will make the difference will be how you can effectively influence executives.
- don't fight feedback

## Getting the title where you are
* path not very clear in companies, some may even "prevent" certain promotions
* opportunities for staff are not equally divided
* sometimes it's good to test engineering management career

### Promotion packets
- what were the staff projects you did? what was the impact obtained? how did you improve the company? How much money did your impact generate?
- have answers to why you are looking for this promotion?
- do not be anxious, these promotions often take time to be presented
- bring the matter up to 1:1 with your manager
- write a promotion package document
- edit with your peers and manager
- periodically review this document

### Find your sponsor
- staff engineer is not just a faster senior engineer
- dont play team games alone, you will lose
- find people who give visibility to your achievements and increase your value in the company
- be direct with your sponsor: show that you want to be a well-known staff within the company
- if that doesn't work, consider switching companies

### Staff projects
* it's not written anywhere, but usually you have to deliver a staff project to get the promotion
* complex and ambiguous projects
* diverse stakeholders from different areas

### Get in the room, and stay there
- not only participate once in important decisions, but consistently be there
- be someone important in the room: bring important ideas or questions
- important to have someone sponsoring your presence there
- be aligned with your manager
- speak clearly and concisely : contribute by speaking less
- prioritize being useful

### Being visible
- make sure your work is being seen
- write long-lived documents
- lead forums within the company
- contribute to the company blog
- share notes about your work