The Pillars of Staff Engineering

If we unpack the staff engineer role, there are 3 pillars:

• big-picture thinking
• execution of projects, and
• leveling up the engineers you work with

These pillars sit on a solid foundation of technical knowledge and experience. This foundation is critical. Your big-picture perspective includes understanding what’s possible and having good judgement. When executing on projects, your solutions will need to actually solve the problems they set out to solve. When acting as a role model, your review comments should make code and design better, and your opinion need to be well thought out - you need to be right!

But technical knowledge is not enough. Success and growth at this level means doing more than you can do with technical skills alone. To become adept at big-picture thinking, execute on bigger projects, and level up everyone around you, you’re going to need “humaning” skills, like:

• Communication and leadership
• Navigating complexity
• Putting your work in perspective
• Mentorship, sponsorship, and delegation
• Framing a problem so that other people care about it
• Acting like a leader whether you feel like one or not

Big-picture Thinking

Big-picture thinking means being able to step back and take a broader view. It means seeing beyond the immediate details and understanding the context that you’re working in. It also means thinking beyond the current time, whether that means initiating yearlong projects, building software that will be easy to decommission, or predicting what your company will need in three years.

Execution

At the staff level, the projects you take on will become messier and more ambiguous. They’ll involve more people and need more political capital, influence, or culture change to succeed.

Leveling up

Every increase in seniority comes with more responsibility for raising the standards and skills of the engineers within your orbit, whether that’s your local team, colleagues in your organization, or engineers across your whole company or industry. This responsibility will include intentional influence through teaching and mentoring, as well as the accidental influence that comes from being a role model.