The Staff Engineer’s Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change
- Length: 356 pages
- Edition: 1
- Language: English
- Publisher: O'Reilly Media
- Publication Date: 2022-10-25
- ISBN-10: 1098118731
- ISBN-13: 9781098118730
- Sales Rank: #16667 (See Top 100 Books)
For years, companies have rewarded their most effective engineers with management positions. But treating management as the default path for an engineer with leadership ability doesn’t serve the industry well–or the engineer. The staff engineer’s path allows engineers to contribute at a high level as role models, driving big projects, determining technical strategy, and raising everyone’s skills.
This in-depth book shows you how to understand your role, manage your time, master strategic thinking, and set the standard for technical work. You’ll read about how to be a leader without direct authority, how to plan ahead to make the right technical decisions, and how to make everyone around you better, while still growing as an expert in your domain.
By exploring the three pillars of a staff engineer’s job, Tanya Reilly, a veteran of the staff engineer track, shows you how to:
- Take a broad, strategic view when thinking about your work
- Dive into practical tactics for making projects succeed
- Determine what “good engineering” means in your organization
Foreword Introduction Two Paths The Pillars of Staff Engineering Part I: The Big Picture Part II: Execution Part III: Leveling Up O’Reilly Online Learning How to Contact Us Acknowledgments I. The Big Picture 1. What Would You Say You Do Here? What Even Is a Staff Engineer? Why Do We Need Engineers Who Can See the Big Picture? Why Do We Need Engineers Who Lead Projects That Cross Multiple Teams? Why Do We Need Engineers Who Are a Good Influence? Enough Philosophy. What’s My Job? You’re Not a Manager, but You Are a Leader You’re in a “Technical” Role You Aim to Be Autonomous You Set Technical Direction You Communicate Often and Well Understanding Your Role Where in the Organization Do You Sit? What’s Your Scope? What Shape Is Your Role? What’s Your Primary Focus? Aligning on Scope, Shape, and Primary Focus Is That Your Job? To Recap 2. Three Maps Uh, Did Anyone Bring a Map? A Locator Map: You Are Here A Topographical Map: Learning the Terrain A Treasure Map: X Marks the Spot Clearing the Fog of War The Locator Map: Getting Perspective Seeing Bigger The Topographical Map: Navigating the Terrain Rough Terrain Understanding Your Organization What Points of Interest Are on Your Map? Keeping Your Topographic Map Up to Date If the Terrain Is Still Difficult to Navigate, Be a Bridge The Treasure Map: Remind Me Where We’re Going? Chasing Shiny Things Taking a Longer View If the Treasure Map Is Still Unclear, It Might Be Time to Draw a New One Your Personal Journey To Recap 3. Creating the Big Picture The Scenario: SockMatcher Needs a Plan What’s a Vision? What’s a Strategy? What’s a Technical Vision? What’s a Technical Strategy? Do You Really Need Vision and Strategy Documents? The Approach Embrace the Boring Ideas Join an Expedition in Progress Get a Sponsor Choose Your Core Group Set Scope Make Sure It’s Achievable Make It Official The Writing The Writing Loop Make Decisions Get Aligned and Stay Aligned Create the Final Draft The Launch Make It Official Keep It Fresh Case Study: SockMatcher Approach The Writing The Launch To Recap II. Execution 4. Finite Time Doing All the Things Time Finite Time How Busy Do You Like to Be? projectqueue.pop()? Resource Constraints Your Dashboard E + 2S + ...? Bin packing Choosing Projects Evaluating a Project What are you signing on for? Questions to Ask Yourself About Projects What If It’s the Wrong Project? Examples Defend Your Time To Recap 5. Leading Big Projects The Life of a Project The Start of a Project If You’re Feeling Overwhelmed… Building Context Giving Your Project Structure Driving the Project Exploring Clarifying Designing Coding Communicating Navigating To Recap 6. Why Have We Stopped? The Project Isn’t Moving—Should It Be? You’re Stuck in Traffic Blocked by Another Team Blocked by a Decision Blocked by a Single $%@$% Button Click Blocked by a Single Person Blocked by Unassigned Work Blocked by a Huge Crowd of People You’re Lost You Don’t Know Where You’re All Going You Don’t Know How to Get There You Don’t Know Where You Stand You Have Arrived…Somewhere? But It’s Code Complete! It’s Done but Nobody Is Using It It’s Built on a Shaky Foundation The Project Just Stops Here To Recap III. Leveling Up 7. You’re a Role Model Now (Sorry) What Does It Mean to Do a Good Job? Values Are What You Do But I Don’t Want to Be a Role Model! What Does It Mean to Do a Good Job as a Senior Engineer? Be Competent Know Things Be Self-Aware Have High Standards Be Responsible Take Ownership Take Charge Create Calm Remember the Goal Remember There’s a Business Remember There’s a User Remember There’s a Team Look Ahead Anticipate What You’ll Wish You’d Done Expect Failure Optimize for Maintenance, Not Creation Create Future Leaders To Recap 8. Good Influence at Scale Good Influence Scaling Your Good Influence Advice Individual Advice Scaling Your Advice to a Group Being a Catalyst Teaching Individual Teaching Scaling Your Teaching to a Group Being a Catalyst Guardrails Individual Guardrails Scaling Your Guardrails to a Group Being a Catalyst Opportunity Individual Opportunities Scaling Your Opportunities to a Group Being a Catalyst To Recap 9. What’s Next? Your Career What’s Important to You? Where Are You Going? What Do You Need to Invest In? Your Current Role Five Metrics to Keep an Eye On Can You Get What You Want from Your Role? Should You Change Jobs? Paths from Here Keep Doing What You’re Doing Work Toward Promotion Work Less Change Teams Build a New Specialty Explore Take a Management Role Take on Reports for the First Time Find or Invent Your Own Niche Do the Same Job for a Different Employer Change Employers and Go Up a Level Change Employers and Go Down a Level Set Up Your Own Startup Go Independent Change Careers Prepare to Reset Your Choices Matter To Recap Index About the Author
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