Staff Engineer

Leadership Beyond the Management Track

By: Will Larson

Narrated by: Shaula Evans

Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior software engineer, the career level for software engineers, in five to eight years. At the career level, your company's career ladder won't require that you work towards the next promotion; being promoted further is an exception rather than expected. This is also when many engineers are first given an opportunity to move into engineering management.

Over the past few years, we've seen a flurry of books unlocking the engineering management career path, like Camille Fournier's The Manager's Path, Julie Zhuo's The Making of a Manager, Lara Hogan's Resilient Management, and even my own An Elegant Puzzle. The engineering management career isn't an easy one, but there are maps available to help navigate it. What if you want to advance your career without becoming an engineering manager? The technical leadership path remains relatively undocumented, hard to navigate, and inconsistent across companies. Staff Engineer is your guide to building your career towards a staff engineering role, receiving the title, and succeeding within the role.

©2021 Will Larson (P)2022 Will Larson

This is the way to get the next level in tech

I wasn't sure that there was an alternative to manager in tech roles, but this book gave me the lights to pursue a career with future, again, outside of managerial.

As engineer in general, we're told to do the hard things and get promoted. What if the promotion you're looking for is not related to manage, you want to stay in tech roles but don't know how or what roles is beyond seniority.

This book will clear our minds in terms of what and how looking for the next steps in tech roles. Stuff+ engineering roles are key in organizations, don't fooll yourself if your still want to groth outside seniority. Every chapters seemed to me a precious advice in terms of how and wath to do exactly to get your next role in tech.

Finally, the interviews were awesome too. Each experience contributed me as much as the chapters topic. Hope the next gen of stuff+ engineering roles will benefit from this book.

started out great

It started out great but as the other reviews mention, it gets very repetitive, especially the interview sections.

Too much repeated info

It’s ok. A lot of repeated information and so it sometimes feels like having hit the back button when you haven’t. Multiple readers would have helped as there is lots on interviews in the last half of the book that feel kind of static with a single voice.

Good content marred by audio issues

As a staff software engineer myself, I’m part of the demographic this book is aimed at. The parts I was able to listen to were accurate and relatable.

Unfortunately there were many section where the audio just suddenly cut out and began in the next section. It was bad enough that I returned the title. It’s in my wish list and in a few months I’ll try to buy it again if the playback errors are fixed.

Hugely informative

As someone who found themselves in a principal role possibly by virtue of being somewhere so long and not ever knowing what my job actually was, what the expectations where, or who I was supposed to be for others, this was the best information I’ve ever found. I’m still not sure who I’m supposed to be and don’t believe I’m worthy of the title given, but having a much better idea of what the words mean and what the expectations are at many other places at least gives me an idea of how to improve and get there. Thanks Will, this was a huge help to me.

Only touching the surface

The advice stays limited at the surface level. The author didn’t support their suggestions with real life or hypothetical examples.

The interviews with other Staff Engineers part was nice

Well narrated. Worth listening to it in audiobook format.

Ok

It explained 1) the different types and roles of a staff engineer, and 2) why almost only big companies (or very well funded ones) have staff engineers.

The content was a little bit shallow, the interviews (in the second part) were basically the book repeated with the perspective from staff engineers.

I guess it is ok, there is a lot of interesting points, but maybe not enough content for a complete book.

Useful and unique material, could be condensed more

I found parts of the book quite repetitive. However it is a unique resource in the field and it deserves credit for that. Definitely recommend it to folks who think they might need to hear more about others who’ve reached senior IC levels.

Not Just for Software Engineers

I really enjoyed the format of the career stories in the book and hearing the experiences of others. The lessons these individuals learned can apply across domains and into Pre-Sales / Post-Sales Engineering or Engineers with a focus outside the software development realm. I greatly enjoy Larson’s other book, and this one was no different. Keep up the great work!

A great resource for engineers moving on up

Anyone who works in tech, from IT support and infrastructure to system administration, software development, and engineering, knows the problems that you face when you begin to top out at your individual contributor positions and hit the ceiling of the "senior" positions. Being able to transition into a Lead or Staff position brings with it a lot of challenges, and you begin to rely on a different set of professional skills.

Staff Engineer is a guide to help you navigate from being a senior engineer (or the equivalent) into some flavor of Staff Engineer role. Even if you don't work in a software engineering field, anyone who is part of a large tech organization and nearing the top of their non-management career path can benefit from what's found in this book. As someone who moved into a Lead role ten years ago, and a true Manager title six years ago, this book has a lot of helpful wisdom and information that can assist you in not only landing that career move, but making it a lot smoother and less stressful.

The narration by Shaula Evans is solid and well-articulated. Some people might find the audio adaptation from the text - with lots of quotes and footnotes and non-linear text - a little confusing, but clearly the intent was to make sure quotes were properly attributed, and there was likely no perfect method for doing this. I think the narration is fine and doesn't detract from the meat of this book, but I can understand that if someone is not paying attention, it might be distracting. This is definitely a situation where listening to the audiobook and then going out and getting a paper copy of the text is likely a really good idea.