Journey to Staff Engineer role - Resources
Seeking to scale up on the engineering ladder? Here I share with you some resources that willl help you understand Staff Engineer role and how to reach it
When weâre aiming for a new role, one of the first things we usually do is search for that role on our favorite search engine. At some point, you come across writings from people who either currently hold the role or have previously held it. This is where we find the most insightful information about our most common questions:
What is that role exactly?
Is it really what I want?
What are the main responsibilities?
What is the change from my previous position?
In todayâs issue, I want to focus on an interesting role, the Staff Engineer, and Iâve been collecting a set of resources that I found interesting for people who are planning to move forward through the Staff Engineer position.
For all the newsletters Iâve mentioned here, I really recommend you subscribe if you are looking into a Staff Engineer or some kind of Technical Leadership position.
From Alex Ewerlöf. This a great introduction to the Staff Engineer role, the main goals, and the expectations of it. With clear graphs, this issue will help you with what you have to do working as a Staff Engineer.
From Jordan Cutler. In this issue, Jordan interviewed 5 Staff Engineers from different companies such as Instagram, Airbnb, and Activision, about their journey to the Staff Engineer role. I found their insights, experiences, and clear actionable items to be particularly interesting and practical.
From Gergely Orosz. In this (paid) issue, Gergely teams up with Nicky Wrightson to go through the main points, touching not only the âwhat the role isâ and the expectations but also sharing the differences with the Senior Software Engineer role and the frustrations of the Staff Engineer role and how to mitigate them.
Now, I would like to share with you some books that I read and found specially useful to people that is planning to move toward tech leadership positions. Please note that they are not strictly focused on the Staff Engineer position but into engineering leadership, which is an important piece for a Staff Engineer role.
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren PhD (Autor), Jez Humble (Autor), Gene Kim. A great book based on research. If you are looking for a book that makes a difference, this is one.
The Manager`s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camile Fournier. A good book in my opinion to understand what to expect about the Tech Lead role or Engineer Manager role and, more importantly, how to navigate as a leader.
Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't by Simon Sinek. One of my favorites about leadership in general. Again, this is not a specific book for the Staff Engineering role but instead, you can learn some important lessons about caring about the people you work with as a leader.
Thatâs it!
This is not intended to be an extensive list of resources, but rather a focused and genuinely helpful compilation.
Hope you like it! If you have some resources you find useful, please, share them in the comments so all of us can profit from your help!
Best,
Marcos
This book is also great to understand the Staff role - https://staffeng.com/book