Introduction
My first misconception of a Staff engineer was that of a super senior engineer. An ultra-capable, technical genius, capable of independently designing and implementing scalable solutions to any problem thrown at them. A near impossible expectation — and realistically, a high-risk model for organizational disruption.
As an expert in your domain, it’s easy to get lost in the sea of never-ending improvements and stuck in a loop of “easy” tasks to knock out, which can can feel like perceived productivity.
In this article, I will discuss my personal prioritization process to identify high-impact initiatives.
What type of work makes a Staff Engineer’s impact different?
A Staff engineer should be capable of enabling and developing others to work together towards designing and implementing scalable solutions to any problem thrown at them. This creates a system where teams can grow around them without becoming a single point of failure. They serve as a force multiplier. Delivering at this level goes beyond delegation.
In my view, if your output consistently improves 2 or more of the following attributes simultaneously — you are delivering at a Staff level:
- Consistency
- Depth of analysis
- Barrier of entry
- Time to completion
1. Consistency
No matter how good of a specialist you are in your domain, to deliver high caliber results at scale requires you to develop a system where your output is consistent.
No matter the day of the week or if you’re out on a much deserved vacation. Your team must be capable of delivering at the same standard. When dealing with consistency, we are primarily concerned with a repeatable approach. Do not dwell on perfection.
Improving consistency may look like:
- Developing standard operating procedures
- Defining quality criteria and supporting toolsets
- Designing document templates and code modules
Example: Deploying a standard suite of automated tests within the CI/CD pipeline to be performed.
2. Depth of Analysis
As a high performing individual, you are likely trusted with high impact initiatives within the organization that carry huge weight to the business. The work your team delivers should serve as an example standard to be met and referenced for future work. Ultimately, this analysis should lead to actionable options to make support an executive decision.
This attribute is focused on consistently raising the bar for higher quality to make better informed decisions.
Along the way, you should be bringing in SMEs across the organization and eliciting feedback more junior folks to support the analysis.
Output here may look like:
- Detailed technical reference documentation (Tech Specs, decision logs, reference architecture, etc)
- Investigative report with detailed findings and next steps
Example: Pros/Cons enumeration of long-term architectural design patterns to support 3rd party partner integrations.
3. Barrier of Entry
Reducing the barrier of entry is a huge amplifier to your team’s output. A Staff engineer can consistently level-up those around them to be capable of executing high-value tasks.
The goal here is to abstract and reduce the complexities of high-value tasks and services provided to the organization. Over time, these abstractions will serve as building blocks that others can learn from and improve in the future.
This may look like:
- Developing an onboarding guide and measuring engineer ramp-up time
- Abstracting an individual workflow into a custom tool
- Designing and delivering tailored training
Example: Defining a repeatable secure code review process with supporting documentation on how to perform the analysis.
4. Time to Completion
The faster an organization can deliver high quality products and services, the better. As an engineer, I recommend doing a quick thought exercise with your team.
- List the top 5 tasks the team must consistently execute
- Rank them by impact to team/department/organization
- Ballpark estimate on how long it takes
- Select the item with the highest impact and longest time to completion
- Dedicate a cycle towards improving this area
Example: Developing an autonomous system to triage tool-detected software vulnerabilities to reduce routine manual effort.
Conclusion
Any initiatives that focus on the improvement of a single trait above is still a worthy effort! But delivering high-impact work requires you to be capable of encompassing several of them together. In simple terms, a staff engineer is more than just “good at what they do”. They are capable of developing systems that can propel others to go further than they could alone.
This certainly doesn’t mean that a staff engineer is necessarily “smarter” than a senior. Their scopes of work are just different.
As I first grew into my role as a Staff Engineer, a trusted colleague recommended that I read “Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track” by Will Larson. I highly recommend it to learn more about the details of this differentiation from the experience of many others.
