Playbook - How to become (and be seen as) a Staff Engineer

A practical one-page playbook to stop waiting for promotion and start building evidence

If you want to get promoted, doing a good job is not enough.

👉🏼 You need to be seen doing the work of the role you want.

Over the last few months, I’ve written several articles about Staff Engineer, technical leadership, ownership, and breaking out of silos.

I’ve now condensed all that practical advice into a one-page playbook you can actually use.

☝🏼 It’s a set of behaviors, habits, and templates you can start applying this week.

What’s inside the playbook?

• The core mindset behind Staff roles: scope and consistency.

• 8 practical habits Staff Engineers repeat over time (delivery, cross-team impact, metrics, mentoring).

• Ready-to-use templates: weekly stakeholder update, experiment write-up, meeting ritual.

• What to bring to your 1:1s: a simple evidence-based dossier for promotion conversations.

• A weekly checklist to stay focused and avoid “invisible work”.

Why I built it

Because Staff Engineer is not a title you wait for: It’s a pattern of visible behavior you build over time.

And most engineers don’t fail because they lack skill; they fail because their impact is scattered, siloed, or invisible.

👉 Download the playbook

You can download the one-page Staff Engineer Playbook here:

Let’s make it practical

Once you’ve read it, reply to this email with:

“#X → my hardest habit”

(where X is the habit you struggle with the most)

I’ll reply with 3 concrete actions you can take next week to start building Staff-level evidence.

Stop waiting to be “ready”.

Start behaving like the role you want.

Hope you enjoy this playbook!

Be safe,
Marcos

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Thanks for your support and feedback, I really appreciate it!

You’re the best! 🖖🏼

𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 💜. 𝘐𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱𝘴!

𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴, ♻️ 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴