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Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

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Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#131

Post by Matthias247 »

ilc wrote: post #63
kccqzy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think only the Solver type from the article acts as a force multiplier. Have a strange bug that you have been trying and failing to solve for a few days? They will probably fix that in a few hours and unblock you immediately.

Solvers don't fix the problem. They tell you how to fix the problem. :) That's how they make sure the problem stays fixed.

they should be able to do both. In case a high severity issue is ongoing, and someone knows how to fix it very fast - they should probably do it. Or guide another engineer in realtime on how to do it.

If it's not that urgent, they might guide others in a more asynchronous fashion on how to get to a fix

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#132

Post by hayst4ck »

Aeolun wrote: post #126
hayst4ck wrote: post #40

This is jaded and angry, but I think there is another archetype called "the politician." They play the game extremely well, providing poorly thought out solutions quickly to problems they haven't dug into the complexity of. They lay operational traps everywhere in their quest to get things done fast (like directly embedding config data in code to avoid fixing the config format). Once they've picked the low hanging fr…

How does that work exactly? I can absolutely commit an unmaintainable mess directly to master, but I’d be very quickly called out by my team.

Very large portions of some very major companies have A lot of these prolific devs will not see the code base complexity for the "tragedy of the commons" it is, and bemoan the people and teams who start to try adding "regulations" (meetings/code review) to protect the common because it slows down their ability to meet their management given goals.

There is also a magic phrase that frequently disarms attempts to prevent bad code from entering a code base "this is just temporary." It's easy to put off fixing the "temporary" code forever as other things become higher priority.

Often times someone will inherit a staff engineer's code and therefore won't have been able to stop it. Sometimes staff engineers are able to create an entire service with minimal review that is then "gifted" to a team to refine and maintain.

In a lot of these situations, the feedback mechanisms (yearly peer review) will limit who can give feedback about who, not to mention they are not anonymous and staff engineers are usually highly connected.

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#133

Post by roflyear »

sbf501 wrote: post #77
hayst4ck wrote: post #40

This is jaded and angry, but I think there is another archetype called "the politician." They play the game extremely well, providing poorly thought out solutions quickly to problems they haven't dug into the complexity of. They lay operational traps everywhere in their quest to get things done fast (like directly embedding config data in code to avoid fixing the config format). Once they've picked the low hanging fr…

Since we're being anecdotal: I think that claim is jaded and angry, and makes me wonder what kinds of companies people have worked at. Honestly, I've only encountered this once or twice, and I've been a career engineer since 1989 at places like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft. Dozens of positions and groups, and I've never had to play politics. Maybe I've just worked at "good" companies (irony noted), but in my experience…

Most startups today I would imagine fit this bill.

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#134

Post by winphone1974 »

The 10x developer isn't someone who crushes 10 times as many tickets, or works 10 times as fast, they're someone who makes a large number of people marginally better while their peers focus soley on their individual contribution. It's both surprisingly easy to accomplish and sadly under recognized (or even actively discouraged)

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#135

Post by lioeters »

bgro wrote: post #95
hayst4ck wrote: post #40

This is jaded and angry, but I think there is another archetype called "the politician." They play the game extremely well, providing poorly thought out solutions quickly to problems they haven't dug into the complexity of. They lay operational traps everywhere in their quest to get things done fast (like directly embedding config data in code to avoid fixing the config format). Once they've picked the low hanging fr…

This is almost exclusively what I've encountered in most of the "elite" engineers. It's frustrating because they're the ones saying coding and job hopping is easy. They're the ones in tech interviews who downplay your achievements. In my experience, rather than leaving for another company though, they're often a C-suite favorite and get to start some new project (often it's whatever they want to do as long as it's re…

The story reminds me of the so-called 80/20 rule.

> Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% of the most-reported bugs, 80% of the related errors and crashes in a given system would be eliminated. Lowell Arthur expressed that "20% of the code has 80% of the errors. Find them, fix them!"

More relevant part:

> It was also discovered that, in general, 80% of a piece of software can be written in 20% of the total allocated time. Conversely, the hardest 20% of the code takes 80% of the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle#In_computing

It sounds like you were often stuck with the toughest 20% which actually took 80% of the effort. I also heard that of that 20%, there's another level of 80/20, where a further 20% takes 80% of the rest of the effort, and so on.

Anyway, I hope you find a better situation!

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#136

Post by ZephyrBlu »

YorkianTones wrote: post #106

Are staff engineers needed? The role seems like a relatively new invention. Senior and midlevel IC engineers do the heavy lifting, principals set strategy and define architecture, EMs manage engineers, PMs manage product. I'm not clear on what the role of the staff engineer is and why it's needed.

A big function of Staff engineers is working across teams. Cross-team communication and alignment is difficult.

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#137

Post by zmj »

tzone wrote: post #96
ble wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually think of an at-work "politician" as somehow taking advantage of relationships or social forces. What you describe sounds more to me like the ""10X engineer"" (with extra scare quotes for good measure). Many people have been skeptical of the idea of the 10X engineer. One take is that if your normal engineers are less than 1/10th as productive as another engineer and all of them are merely human beings, there…

If you have never seen a 10x engineer you either have never worked with truly talented people or you haven’t worked on actual hard problems. There aren’t just 10 or 100x engineers , there are even infinityX engineers when you work on actual hard problems because some of those can only be solved by handful of people.

This reminds me of an old essay: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/07/25/hitting-the-high-n...

The thesis is that the "10x engineers" don't output a linear multiple of the same kind of work their peers do. Instead, they implement solutions that their peers wouldn't or couldn't over any length of time.

This matches my experience.

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#138

Post by lamontcg »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #102
lamontcg wrote: post #99

I'm pretty sure I've worn both the Team Lead, Architect, and Solver hats at the same time.

At small companies you will, and you might still be just plainly titled "Software Engineer".

Principal Software Engineer, but yeah.

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#139

Post by 29athrowaway »

hayst4ck wrote: post #40

This is jaded and angry, but I think there is another archetype called "the politician." They play the game extremely well, providing poorly thought out solutions quickly to problems they haven't dug into the complexity of. They lay operational traps everywhere in their quest to get things done fast (like directly embedding config data in code to avoid fixing the config format). Once they've picked the low hanging fr…

Example: Dennis Nedry

Prior experience: Solution architect at Jurassic Park. Present: Dinosaur food

Re: Staff Engineer Archetypes (2020)

#140

Post by [deleted] »

ble wrote: post #65
hayst4ck wrote: post #40

This is jaded and angry, but I think there is another archetype called "the politician." They play the game extremely well, providing poorly thought out solutions quickly to problems they haven't dug into the complexity of. They lay operational traps everywhere in their quest to get things done fast (like directly embedding config data in code to avoid fixing the config format). Once they've picked the low hanging fr…

I usually think of an at-work "politician" as somehow taking advantage of relationships or social forces. What you describe sounds more to me like the ""10X engineer"" (with extra scare quotes for good measure). Many people have been skeptical of the idea of the 10X engineer. One take is that if your normal engineers are less than 1/10th as productive as another engineer and all of them are merely human beings, there…

[deleted]
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