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The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

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Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#31

Post by Xeoncross »

losteric wrote: post #26
Xeoncross wrote: post #15

Where do all the hardcore engineering jobs live? I've been bothered by the fact that most advanced engineering roles like "staff" actually mean "manager who does system design as well" Where are the docker/redis/next.js/linux kernel/qt/roller-coaster tycoon creators? Where are the people creating amazing software and do they get a special "advanced developer" title? I guess, I'm curious if there are actual roles in c…

Yes. All the FAANGs have such roles. Sure, most PEs are "applied" engineering or management right-hands, but the same companies have PEs up to VP/Distinguished Engineers deep in technology... React came from Facebook, Google employees James Gosling (Java), Jim Roskind (QUIC) is formerly Google currently Amazon... at all these companies, there's a ton of deep technology the public hasn't even heard of.

How do you find those teams and that work... or is it a matter of those companies finding you because of your open source work? For example, Google hiring Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, and Ken Thompson to create Go?

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#32

Post by Tehnix »

This is honestly a great resource! Funnily enough I've been using it internally at my company to both:

- Facilitate conversations and a workshop with other Managers around what our expectations generally should be for Staff+ Engineer levels

- Drive a deeper conversation with each of the Engineers I'm responsible for, to help them explore more of the "untold" parts of the IC role, what that could look like, and how they could work towards it

Freeform diving into it with people has been quite beneficial for many that don't have much of a clear idea of what it means to go beyond senior, and how to navigate the ambiguity that it can bring with it.

I've found that each person took away their own specific things from the book which was quite fun to see :)

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#33

Post by ravenstine »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #3
msoad wrote: post #2

I'm a Staff Engineer, but I hardly do anything that this book describes. Maybe it's my company, but we have so many Staff Engineers that if we all were to do this stuff, nobody would have time to do the actual work and there would be too many people trying to lead. Perhaps the levels are diluted and my title doesn't match my actual role at my company, but it feels like this is an industry-wide phenomenon.

Staff engineer is the new senior engineer.

That's been my suspicion for a while now.

The last 3 companies I've worked for had no juniors and mid-levels, but only seniors and a handful or staff engineers. What staff engineers did on a day-to-day basis was hardly different from what the senior engineers do, besides having more responsibilities and maybe more say over things like architecture. Depending on the company, a staff engineer could be managing or not managing at all. In general, I don't think these title really mean a whole lot, that is unless one is intent on managing specifically.

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#34

Post by Xeoncross »

UncleMeat wrote: post #27
Xeoncross wrote: post #15

Where do all the hardcore engineering jobs live? I've been bothered by the fact that most advanced engineering roles like "staff" actually mean "manager who does system design as well" Where are the docker/redis/next.js/linux kernel/qt/roller-coaster tycoon creators? Where are the people creating amazing software and do they get a special "advanced developer" title? I guess, I'm curious if there are actual roles in c…

Software engineering . Most engineering is this way. Somebody needs to build a thing that isn't too different from other things on a budget and a timeline. Your typical civil engineer isn't designing a new burj khalifa. Most software engineering is about organizing a group of people to build a thing for a customer that isn't too different from other things, on time and on budget. There just simply aren't as many jobs…

So are we saying that software engineering can be at odds with your ability to write code? I'm not sure most people would say they are quite the dichotomy you present here.

While I agree it's often a team-sport, being able to create amazing things yourself (i.e. Git, Redis, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Rust and other single-person projects) that others struggle to replicate or contribute too shouldn't mean you're a bad software engineer.

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#35

Post by dogline »

pc86 wrote: post #16
msoad wrote: post #2

I'm a Staff Engineer, but I hardly do anything that this book describes. Maybe it's my company, but we have so many Staff Engineers that if we all were to do this stuff, nobody would have time to do the actual work and there would be too many people trying to lead. Perhaps the levels are diluted and my title doesn't match my actual role at my company, but it feels like this is an industry-wide phenomenon.

I've always viewed the levels sort of like this, obviously very dependent on company: Juniors need hand-holding at every step. They may be new grads who don't even know how to behave in a professional environment or very inexperienced folks 1-2 years out of school taking a role in a completely different language they're unfamiliar with. You're talking to them anywhere from 5+ times a day to every other day as they tr…

I think there's another past staff/senior where you get to tell all of the other groups to leave you alone, and you're back to being dirty and building cool things. This is where you're most valuable and where they want you. But, you need the confidence that you've got it handled and you're trusted to communicate as needed.

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#36

Post by HEmanZ »

Xeoncross wrote: post #15

Where do all the hardcore engineering jobs live? I've been bothered by the fact that most advanced engineering roles like "staff" actually mean "manager who does system design as well" Where are the docker/redis/next.js/linux kernel/qt/roller-coaster tycoon creators? Where are the people creating amazing software and do they get a special "advanced developer" title? I guess, I'm curious if there are actual roles in c…

It’s always odd to me people ask this, because you see it all the time if you work on big infra. It just goes to show my experience at mostly infrastructure at big tech is just not normal.

Anywhere there are extremely large or technical company will have stellar ICs. All the FAANG have them (not everyone working there is one, but they are around and you find a lot of them on e.g massive distributed data systems). Not only do you run into stellar staff engineers at these places, but if you work on critical infra at say Google, you run into a couple 50x engineers that defy classification. Any company that produces a world-class database, distributed system, etc. will have very good, very expensive staff engineers, who really are ICs and not managers.

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#38

Post by never_inline »

eatonphil wrote: post #24
Xeoncross wrote: post #15

Where do all the hardcore engineering jobs live? I've been bothered by the fact that most advanced engineering roles like "staff" actually mean "manager who does system design as well" Where are the docker/redis/next.js/linux kernel/qt/roller-coaster tycoon creators? Where are the people creating amazing software and do they get a special "advanced developer" title? I guess, I'm curious if there are actual roles in c…

One area to find great engineers (and interesting jobs) is at database, infrastructure and devtools companies. Places like Cockroach, PlanetScale, Docker, JetBrains, CodeWeavers, Fastly, etc. And the databases, infrastructure or tooling teams within Meta, Microsoft, etc.

Out of curiosity, do they have junior engineers too? I would love to work on docker or jetbrains for example.

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#39

Post by mkozlows »

pc86 wrote: post #22
shimst3r wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: With quickly growing organizations and therefore more inexperienced people managers, promoting someone to staff engineer is an easy way out of responsibility. How often have I heard "you’re at a point in your career now where a people manager will only hinder you" to justify not being capable of supporting me.

Curious your thoughts on who a Staff should report to. I've been at a handful of places where there were Staff Engineers (some of them even deserved it!) and it always seemed like the promotion from Senior to Staff came with a change in reporting structure, where now instead of reporting to a Manager you're reporting to a Director or a VP, even the CTO in smaller orgs. I think this is a good indication of increased a…

I'd argue that if you're a staff engineer, you need to be adept at navigating the "political nonsense." A director/VP should be able to think of you as at least as senior and capable of handling ambiguity and being self-directed as any manager.

Re: The Staff Engineer's Path – Book Review

#40

Post by swozey »

danwee wrote: post #11

I certainly like that companies are introducing yet another step in the IC ladder. Before it was like: junior1 -> junior2 -> senior1 -> senior2 -> manager. And the money you get by being junior2/junior2/senior1 is not that much. Nowadays I see companies doing: ... -> senior1 -> senior2 -> staff1 -> staff2 -> manager. So, in the past I have quit a job at level staff1 (decent money), just to go to another company where…

I'm staff and I don't consider Manager a vertical step at all. It's a horizontal. Completely different type of job and I really doubt they make much more if more at all money than me. I would never go manager.
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