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People read it and all of them like to act like a staff engineer when in fact there are only available slots for a fraction of the engineers.
Now nobody wants to fix bugs and improve product quality. Why? Because those tasks are not staff-level work.
The reward system and the definition doesn't work.
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…
If I had to take a guess, a lot of these places are close to hardware.
Working with hardware has the additional bonus of often mandating high performance. Any task becomes a lot more exciting when you have microsecond deadlines for controlling an industrial laser.
This cult of staff engineers really need to go away. People read it and all of them like to act like a staff engineer when in fact there are only available slots for a fraction of the engineers. Now nobody wants to fix bugs and improve product quality. Why? Because those tasks are not staff-level work. The reward system and the definition doesn't work.
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…
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…
Big tech sucks a lot, and I mean a lot, of the oxygen out the market for these roles.
If you take the total population of engineers, then how many engineers are needed to build TCP/IP stacks, new app network protocols (i.e. QUIC), databases, web frameworks?
The unfortunate truth is that getting deep experience is rare.
Risk aversion is a core culprit; would you trust a tech not supported by a large community? This creates a tremendous market pressure on a handful of players.
This is one of the reasons that I had to work at big tech to get the experience and skills that I wanted. For example, when I was at AWS, I read every COE (cause of error) report for the big services. This helped me tremendously both as an IC and leader.
Now, I hate that I had to bend the knee to big tech...
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…
The definition I have generally seen for "staff engineer" is an engineering leadership position without direct reports - I see "manager" as generally meaning "has direct reports".
I think this is important: leadership and management are not the same things!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 soft…
Not quite. I am saying that there is a meaningful difference between the process of working with other people over time and with resource constraints and writing software alone without time or resource constraints. Being skilled at writing programs doesn't harm one's ability to make decisions according to engineering principles. I actually don't know for certain that writing Rollercoaster Tycoon in assembly was the n…
There aren't a lot of companies that are doing that in software. For example, there are a lot of SaaS businesses doing things that might have interesting engineering problems to solve but those engineering problems usually don't result in creating new products for software engineers to use. Rails is a good example of a byproduct from a SaaS business, React is a byproduct of whatever Meta does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 soft…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
After you've built up credibility in some interesting tech, other companies would find you based on your work.
This is just my observation, so take it with a grain of salt
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…
> I've been bothered by the fact that most advanced engineering roles like "staff" actually mean "manager who does system design as well" The definition I have generally seen for "staff engineer" is an engineering leadership position without direct reports - I see "manager" as generally meaning "has direct reports". I think this is important: leadership and management are not the same things!