staff engineer leadership beyond the management track by will larson

To help illustrate what I believe the role should look like, it is useful to set the context of why the role might be needed at a company. Often, companies add this role for career progression and retention of engineers, but without recognizing that in the true sense this should be a role change, not an extension of being a senior engineer. There is no single shape for this role, and it will vary from company to company. Level-up your skills at QCon New York (June 13-15, 2023)! Uncover emerging trends and practices from domain experts. This categorisation leads to some confusion about how these roles differ from a senior engineer. However, the traits and behaviours to be successful in this role are often not obvious to people, as we brand these roles as “individual contributor” roles. Staff+ role is such a different role from a senior engineer it's a transitory role into technical leadership and enablement of others. This article is centred around the transition into these roles, rather than the specifics of how each level differs. The normal step up from senior engineer is to staff, but smaller organisations may only have principal engineers.

How many of these levels depends on the size of the organisation. This can encompass staff, senior staff, principal and even distinguished or fellow engineers. Throughout this article “staff+” is referenced - what is meant by this is roles that are beyond the senior engineer role but on the technical track, rather than the management track. I will explain the benefits for organisations to have leadership roles that are focussed on technical enablement and support. In the article, I will describe my views and observations on how staff+ engineers transition to supporters, enablers and force multipliers of others and what technical leadership looks like away from the management track.

Staff engineer leadership beyond the management track by will larson