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Staff Engineer

Leadership Beyond the Management Track

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Staff Engineer

Written by: Will Larson
Narrated by: Shaula Evans
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About this listen

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
Management & Leadership Programming & Software Development Business Technology Leadership Software Development Management Software Career Programming Engineering Management
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The book is very useful and full of others experiences. It can help a lot to have good understanding of the role.
I think it aldosterone very helpful for mid-level engineers to determine their path and also work on their skills early in the career to reach staff positions

Very useful and helpful guide for mid-level and above

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great book full of good information but the use of the word "folks" by the author is beyond cringe. I'm docking a star for it. there is at least one paragraph where it's used three times, one sentence after the other. ridiculous. this is a continuous theme throughout the book. surely they know of the word "people", or other words which express the same meaning, for goodness sake? it's really weird to read because of this, honestly.

oh well, I guess the stereotype that tech people aren't very great with language still reigns true.

great book, but annoying use of word "folks"

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