Key behaviors that help engineers make transformational leaps in their career and scale their impact and influence in a sustainable and meaningful way.
Great question Lucas! So, I will be a bit controversial here and say: yes, you do need a minimal headcount number to start to have staff engineers (and career ladders) the same way that you need a minimal number of engineers to have managers and manager of managers. (I would say around 30 is a good number to start to have true staff engineers in terms of scope beyond tech leads and senior engineers)
But, that doesn't mean that work-wise and behavioral-wise, you can't be acting as a Staff-Plus Engineer from day 1, focusing on high-blast radius, being the driver and helping the company to do multi-scale planning. Although you will probably required to do a lot more hands-on work at the beginning to build the company.
The alternative is to inflate titles, but to know that nobody is going to treat a startup CTO with a team of 5 engineers the same way than a big tech CTO with a team of 5000 engineers. The reality is that even among big companies titles vary and it's normal to be down leveled or up leveled in terms of title no matter where you go. It's better for you to accept that, but what can't change is your skills and your level of impact (and ultimately your total comp). That's the thing you must always be pushing for to be constantly up leveling and preserving, even if for a number of years you decide to take a step backwards to then take two steps forward.
I’m on the same opinion! I’m not staff-level (yet), but I think this angle makes sense.
On smaller companies, while having staff skills is incredible valuable, especially strategic decision making, you also have to be closer to the implementation side.
So that, plus knowing how to prioritize, feels like the most important part of the skill set for early stage companies imo.
Appreciate the through answer! Thank you both Thiago and Caleb ❤️
In the first article in this series, Thiago shares how some staff engineers make the mistake of only being a “Finder”, and stop being a solver. The best staff engineers know when to find, solve, implement or drive.
I think a startup is a perfect example of that – you might be a founding engineer and do a lot of solving and implementing. As the company grows, you might switch into more driver, and then finder.
Great question, I’d love to hear @thiago’s thoughts before I share mine. One quick thing I’ll say is there’s no checklist for being a staff engineer – each team and company’s needs will be a little different, so being flexible and adaptable is another key skill of top performers.
Great article! A lot of the points made here are relevant in organizations that already have a staff engineer position / role and trying to move up the ladder. What about situations in which you are thinking of moving into a staff engineer position with another company? Is that something you see often or just very difficult to do?
One question I always ask when looking at this promo for smaller companies.
At what point does it make sense to actually have a staff engineer on a team?
Given staff is very focused on helping others scale, I’m curious when it makes sense to have someone dedicated to that in early stage companies.
Do you need a necessary headcount, or is it more about how does a person spends their day?
Great question Lucas! So, I will be a bit controversial here and say: yes, you do need a minimal headcount number to start to have staff engineers (and career ladders) the same way that you need a minimal number of engineers to have managers and manager of managers. (I would say around 30 is a good number to start to have true staff engineers in terms of scope beyond tech leads and senior engineers)
But, that doesn't mean that work-wise and behavioral-wise, you can't be acting as a Staff-Plus Engineer from day 1, focusing on high-blast radius, being the driver and helping the company to do multi-scale planning. Although you will probably required to do a lot more hands-on work at the beginning to build the company.
The alternative is to inflate titles, but to know that nobody is going to treat a startup CTO with a team of 5 engineers the same way than a big tech CTO with a team of 5000 engineers. The reality is that even among big companies titles vary and it's normal to be down leveled or up leveled in terms of title no matter where you go. It's better for you to accept that, but what can't change is your skills and your level of impact (and ultimately your total comp). That's the thing you must always be pushing for to be constantly up leveling and preserving, even if for a number of years you decide to take a step backwards to then take two steps forward.
I’m on the same opinion! I’m not staff-level (yet), but I think this angle makes sense.
On smaller companies, while having staff skills is incredible valuable, especially strategic decision making, you also have to be closer to the implementation side.
So that, plus knowing how to prioritize, feels like the most important part of the skill set for early stage companies imo.
Appreciate the through answer! Thank you both Thiago and Caleb ❤️
In the first article in this series, Thiago shares how some staff engineers make the mistake of only being a “Finder”, and stop being a solver. The best staff engineers know when to find, solve, implement or drive.
I think a startup is a perfect example of that – you might be a founding engineer and do a lot of solving and implementing. As the company grows, you might switch into more driver, and then finder.
Great question, I’d love to hear @thiago’s thoughts before I share mine. One quick thing I’ll say is there’s no checklist for being a staff engineer – each team and company’s needs will be a little different, so being flexible and adaptable is another key skill of top performers.
And thanks for the amazing article! ❤️
Great article! A lot of the points made here are relevant in organizations that already have a staff engineer position / role and trying to move up the ladder. What about situations in which you are thinking of moving into a staff engineer position with another company? Is that something you see often or just very difficult to do?