Five Behaviours to Become an Effective Staff-Plus Engineer

This talk helped me articulate a few key arguments that I can use to counter myself when in the throes of impostor syndrome-related attacks from my inner monologue.

Basically, a “staff-plus engineer” is anyone in a technical role that is higher than a senior engineer. These are sometimes referred to as principal engineers, staff engineers, etc.

The big difference between staff-plus and individual contributor path is that an IC role is one you go down when you truly want to contribute as an individual, often acquiring such an expertise in a specific domain that you just do your thing alone.

A staff-plus role requires collaboration, often leading teams, but always being the lynchpin which helps be the voice of technical leadership across multiple teams.

The responsibilities of a staff-plus role include (probably) writing and (definitely) reviewing code, providing technical direction, mentoring and sponsoring other engineers, providing engineering context to non-technical people, and being involved in strategic projects which aren’t shiny but are critical to the success of an organization.

I think I came across this talk at a timely point in my career. I have been tasked with doing staff-plus engineering work ever since starting my first company, and it’s honestly the stuff I love the most.

I’m not a developer who loves to write code. I love writing code because it results in a tool that makes someone’s life easier. What brings me joy is in doing the discovery work needed to clearly articulate the problem and charting a course that’ll lead us to a solution.