How to Become a Staff Engineer

All right, hello, everyone. How are you all? Ready to become staff engineers? Yeah. More excitement. Yeah. Who's ready to become a staff engineer? Yes. Okay. I was the same a few months, years ago when I was ready to become a staff engineer. I was a senior engineer at the time. I was ready to become a staff engineer. I was a senior engineer at the time. But becoming a staff engineer and going from senior to staff felt like so confusing because I was already a leader of projects. I was already leading. I was already the tech lead. So what was the difference between going from senior engineer to staff engineer?

I was already the person developing the whole stack. So what is the difference? Does this feel and resonate with anybody? Does anybody feel confusing? Like, what is the promotion process? What are you supposed to do? Especially going from junior to senior, I feel like there's a lot of confusion. There's so many questions I had. Like, what is a staff engineer? What do you even do? What is the difference between senior to staff? How can I become a staff? What do I need? How is it different from senior? Who do I talk to to become a staff? When do I know I'm ready? And when can I become a staff engineer?

So today, I am going to answer all of these questions for you so that when you go back home on Monday and go to work, you're ready to talk about becoming a staff engineer with your manager. Let's go. So first of all, who the hell am I and why am I talking about this? My name is Shruti Kapoor. I have been a lead member of technical staff at Slack and staff engineer at PayPal. And I came from these titles, but these titles didn't come easy. I started off as a junior web developer at Telus. How many of you know Telus in Canada? Yay! Hell yeah. I went from Telus, which was in Canada, and moved to San Francisco to start working as, again, a junior-ish senior. I don't know what my title was, but a web developer at Pick System. And then I moved to PayPal to become a software engineer 2 at PayPal. In 2019, I got promoted to software engineer 3. In 2021, I became a staff engineer. Heck yeah, I finally did it. And in 2022, I moved to Slack to become a lead member of technical staff.

And today, I'm free as a bird because I don't work at Slack anymore. I'm a full-time content creator now. I left my job three months ago to become a full-time content creator so I can create educational content for you guys and help you achieve the dreams that you have been wanting to. So you can find me on bit.ly at shruti. or on Twitter.

But one thing that I've realized with all of these promotions and all of these job titles and all of these job changes is it's not just about what you do, how technically proficient you are, how good you are at your work, but it's also about who knows what you do. Because if you're sitting at your desk coding away the best program, but nobody knows about it and nobody's talking about it, you're not going to get promoted.

So today, we're going to talk about what is a staff engineer, what do they even do, how to become a staff engineer, and the promotion process. So what is a staff engineer? Well, staff engineers are technical leaders who make teams effective. The two most important stuff here is technical leaders who make teams effective. Because once you become a staff engineer, it's not about you anymore. It's about how many teams, how many people have you enabled in helping them grow and helping them become better engineers and better teams.

Every company kind of defines pillars of staff engineering to help establish what and how to get promoted. So I want to talk about four of those common pillars of staff engineering that you'll find in most companies.

The first is technical excellence, which means that when you become a staff engineer, it's not just about building a feature. Senior engineers and junior engineers usually get a feature assigned, they build a feature, and then ship that feature. But when you become a staff engineer, you're not just building on that feature, you're building systems to scale.

Another important pillar of staff engineering is the organizational impact that you can make. When you become a staff engineer, it's also about how you are using your team to help other teams achieve their goals. You're bridging the communication gaps between the stakeholders, which is engineers, customers, product owners, QA folks, and you become the point person.

Finally, one of the most important parts of staff engineering is mentorship and team development. As a staff engineer, you grow people other than yourself. You're going to help other team members succeed. It could be as part of mentorship, to help them build a new feature, to onboard new engineers, or to help other engineers get promoted as well.

I said that you're solving problems beyond the current team. So when you become a staff engineer, it's also about how you are using your team to help other teams achieve their goals. You're bridging the communication gaps between the stakeholders, which is engineers, customers, product owners, QA folks, and you become the point person. You're also the one to drive consensus on technical decisions. If there are new tech stack to be chosen, why do you want to choose that? You're the person who's going to answer all of those questions.

And finally, one of the most important parts of staff engineering is mentorship and team development. I said that it's not just about what you do. It's also about how many people you're helping. So as a staff engineer, you grow people other than yourself. You're going to help other team members succeed. It could be as part of mentorship. It could be to help them build a new feature. It could be to onboard new engineers. It could also be to help other engineers get promoted as well. You're going to delegate the task of a project from just yourself to helping other people also get tasks to do and assigning areas of expertise and areas of development that other people can focus on and grow on.

You're going to also level up other engineers and help them get promoted as well. And finally, you're going to be the one to champion best practices so that your team and organization understands what those best practices are, but also understands how to follow them. And finally, the last pillar of staff engineering is project leadership, where you are the leader of the project, but you don't have the title of the project owner. So you're going to be the authority of the product, its technical decisions, but also its product decisions as well, without the title of a product owner or a project manager. You're going to be leading cross-functional initiatives, going from designers all the way to QA and analytics folks. You're going to be breaking down complex problems into manageable pieces and coordinate work across multiple engineering teams.

Now while being at Slack and PayPal, I led multiple projects. There is a project that I currently led, which was font selection in Slack. I made huddles accessible all by myself, and I have a patent pending on a project to fix infinity mirroring. Thank you. But what I want to tell you about this is what are the tasks that are needed to become this. So I want to talk about one specific project, which is in Slack, which is currently released. If you go to team settings in Slack and you try to choose a font, that is a project that I built.

Font selection in Slack is something that was never done before. That means it was a Greenfield project. I had no inspiration to kind of start from or nothing to kind of copy from. There was a current feature that was kind of hacky, that kind of did something similar to what we wanted to do. But that became the technical debt that we have to manage. It was built on top of themes. Anybody has used themes in Slack? Anybody use Slack? Yes. Tomorrow you can go and check it out.

It was built on top of a project that was already existing. So it was something that other teams were managing. But we had to build something completely new. So it meant that we were going to have to coordinate with other teams, use their stack and hopefully leverage something so that we're not building something from scratch. It was a huge surface area because this is something that touches all of Slack. It impacts if you change font, it's going to change your font and everything. So it impacts not just my current team, but the entire Slack organization. And I also had to work with other engineers and help them grow.

So it impacts not just my current team, but the entire Slack organization. And I also had to work with other engineers and help them grow. There were new engineers who were interns, but there were also engineers who were staff who were seeing software engineer one side to help them kind of also own ownership over the project. So that was a project that's a kind of typical project that staff engineers work on, where it's kind of a greenfield project. And there might be some technical debt that you have to manage. But you have to start from the beginning, which is the ideation phase, all the way to the end of the project delivery.

Let's talk about how to become a staff engineer. I think before we talk about how to become, let's talk about how to not become a staff engineer. There are a few misconceptions and myths that I've seen when I've mentored people that are holding them back, and I want to share them with you. Number one, this green screen. Let's try this again. Okay. There you go. Oh, wait, no, there you not go. Okay, there we go. Staff engineers also manage technical problems. So number one, you're waiting to be told that you are ready, that you are, that you should be leading the project and that you are good enough. Number one mistake that I may, that I see people make when I mentor them is that they want their manager to come and tell them that it's time for them to lead a project, that it's time for them to step up.

Nobody's going to come rescue you. Your imposter syndrome is too loud, goes back to the first part, but also everybody here has imposter syndrome. Anybody here who has imposter syndrome? Yes. Yeah. A lot of you are not raising hands, but I know that some point in your life you have felt like an imposter. I'm feeling like an imposter right now. Everybody suffers from imposter syndrome, but it's about how you manage your imposter syndrome and how you not let it overcome you and define your career is what matters. So don't let your imposter syndrome hold you back because we all have imposter syndrome. And then you're waiting to become a deep technical expert. I notice this a lot with folks who are trying to get as much knowledge about the system, as much knowledge about the product feature before they even ask to lead a project. Don't wait to become an expert. Ask to lead a project and you are going to gain knowledge as you go.

I don't want to play politics. A lot of people say that, which means I don't want to network. I don't want to tell anybody that I want to become a staff engineer. I don't want to talk to my skip level about my goals. I get it. Politics is something that a lot of people stay away from, but you're going to have to toot your own horn to become the next level of engineer.

And another one that I commonly hear is I'm not good at networking. I don't like it. Does that resonate with somebody? Networking sucks. Yes. So we're going to do a quick networking exercise now. That's how you face your fear. So I want you to talk to the person next to you. Introduce yourself. Oh, no. I'd share a goal. Okay. Well, there you go. Networking 101. You guys are so good at networking. Look at you go.

Now, what I want you to do is go back to work on Monday and talk to one person in your company. Tell them maybe somebody new. Tell them who you are, what team you work at and what is one goal that you want to get to. This could be a skip level person. This could be a manager itself. This could be a new team member. Or this could be just somebody that you've never talked to before. That is the basics of networking. You find somebody new and just introduce yourself and tell them what you're working on.

That's how you get started on getting your goals achieved. Let's talk about how to become a staff engineer. The truth is, what worked at my company may not work at yours. Here are some guidelines to help you get to a staff engineer level. Start by talking to your manager to understand your evaluation criteria and current gaps.

Identify projects to address these gaps. Build a support squad of sponsors who can vouch for your impact. You need to perform like a staff engineer before becoming one. As a tech lead, collaborate with product teams and own the technical aspects. Delegate tasks, analyze tech needs, and work with various teams to have a significant impact.

So you can pitch that project or it's something new that your manager has in mind. So they can pitch that project to you. Pick a project that can help you fill in the current gaps. And then figure out who is your support squad. Why is this important? Because when it comes time to promotion, the promotion committee is going to be talking about who this person is and how many people know what this person has done. So you need a group of sponsors who can pitch for you. And these can be technical leaders. These can be staff engineers themselves, maybe junior engineers that you can mentor. All these can be product folks as well who can pitch the product that you've built for them. Or these can be senior leadership, your skip level manager, your VP, anybody who can pitch for what you are working on and can vouch for the impact that you have made. Because you need to be already performing like a staff engineer to become a staff engineer.

Now, I know that sounds like a bunch of bullshit. And you're going to be like, what the hell are you talking about? So let me tell you, before you become a staff engineer, these are the expectations. I have three minutes, so I'm going to keep going. I have 132 slides to cover. So you need to be working as a tech lead of the project. Work with the product owner to sort of own the technical side of the product. Analyze what the tech currently looks like and where you need to take it. Figure out the missing pieces and delegate those missing pieces to the right team members so that they have ownership over some parts of the project. Figure out which teams you're going to be impacting and work with the leaders from those teams.

Once you figure out which teams you're going to be impacting, at that point, it's also time to think about the scale. So you're not just building a feature, you're building a system. Think about the scale. How are you going to maintain it? How are you going to publish it? How are you going to deploy it? Design the tech spec for that. Share it with the rest of the team and then build a POC to show what you're working on. Something that you need to be working on before you get to the staff engineer level. If I can summarize the process from going from senior engineer to staff engineer in a few projects or a few milestones, here's what I would say. You need three types of technical projects, all different types of technical projects. I'll talk about those types. You need to have at least two mentees who you have, one, help them get promoted or two, help them unblock.

Somebody who can vouch about your mentorship. And finally, you need to be a peer. And finally, you need to be a product person or a point of contact for at least one project. Which is that if there is any project that you can think of right now and you have a question about that project, who is that person we want to go to? That person has to be you. But the main thing I want you to think about is think beyond your current team and the scope you can make beyond your current team. Because the difference between senior engineers and staff engineers is that senior engineers are given projects, but staff engineers make projects. So how do you make a project? Some avenues that I want you to explore, if these pop up, any ideas in your mind, note them down and talk about them with your team or with your manager.

When you notice a repetitive task, a manual task, something that has to be written down manually or done manually, think about if you can break that and evaluate that process and if you can automate that thing. If a customer complains or keeps complaining about a certain issue, it's not just a bug anymore. This is a problem that needs to be solved on a system level. Think about the system that can change that. When your app feels slower, don't just change your code. Think about where the bottlenecks of that product are. Is it on the front-end side, the back-end side? What is the problem that we are causing? Is it the tech that we have used? What can we change there? When developer experience feels bad and your developers say that your docs are not good, what can you do about it? How can you improve it?

But while you're doing it, make sure you're gathering proof. And the proof can be technical documentation that you've written, which is tech specs, or a detailed tech analysis of the tech you've given, or tech specs that you've shared with other folks, or with the customer teams, or it is technical discussions that you're leading either in person or in Slack. You need proof to show in your promotion packet that you are making an impact. And an easy way to show and become the POC of a product is by answering questions in team channels and customer support channels. And finally, be the person who's ready to help others and offer support to your team. We also got to talk about building the staff engineer portfolio, which are the three projects.

There are the three kinds of projects that you have to keep in mind when you're picking a project. There should be at least one project that spans the whole organization. I've been talking about beyond team, so that is the most important part, something that affects beyond your current team. A problem and a project that showcases a deep technical problem, it could be the same as the organization project, but ideally a different technical project that has never been done before, but something that fixes a deep technical problem that your team has been having. And finally, a project where you've led and grown the team, a mentorship and team leadership project.

Now let's talk about getting promoted. I know I'm out of time, so I'm going to go through this super fast. I talked about a promotion committee, so what is the process of the promotion? Typically in companies, there is a program committee that decides who should get promoted, and your manager may have presented your packet. This team that commits of senior leadership and senior engineers will decide, does this person deserve this promotion more than other people that we have pitched? And do we know the impact that they have made? I talked about it's not about what you've done, it's about who knows what you've done. And finally, do we trust their capabilities? Do we trust the products they have built and the teams they have led?

When you go to the promotion committee, the packet that you have should have at least this. Your BRAC document, which should have a work log of not just what you did, but what you accomplished. Your career plan, which you're going to talk to your manager about to figure out where you are right now and where you want to get to. Proof of everything that you've achieved, including links to Slack, links to PR, anything that you can give proof to. You've got to be talking about your own accomplishments with people, your support squad, and people who are going to make your decision.

You also need testimonials from people. This can either come from regular feedback cycles, or yearly feedback cycles, or just feedback cycles that you can actually do with your manager or with other people. And data of impact made. Now this is numbers. This is how much lines of code you have changed and what product decisions you have derived and what revenue you have brought into the company.

Let's talk about the career plan. I know I'm out of time, so I'm going to go through this real quick. This is the single most important document for your promotion. Every company has a requirements doc, and what you're going to do is add either an Achieving or a Needs Work to every line item. Your goal before your promotion is to have Achieving or Exceeds Expectation in every item of your requirements doc.

Here's a six month plan that I want you to think about if you're hoping to get your promotion. I am not guaranteeing that you're going to get promoted in six months, but this is a plan that you need to start working on so that your promotion gets in the mind of people. Promotion is not just about your skills, it's also about the time. Most people don't get promoted because of the time, not because their skills. There's a lot of people who are usually in a promotion cycle. So it's about finding the right time but also letting people know that you are ready. But one thing that I want you to take away from this talk is take initiative for your career.

In the next week we're going to figure out what gaps we have right now and what projects we can work on to fix those gaps and cover those gaps. In the next month we're going to share that career plan with our manager and make a plan of what we need to do, what projects we can choose. In the third month we're going to work on those projects and keep getting feedback as we improve and as we work on. In the fourth month we're going to start sharing documentation and gathering proof. And finally in the fifth month when it's almost time to get promoted, we're going to share with our manager that we are ready to get promoted or not and where are the current gaps. And hopefully from there it's smooth sailing and your manager knows that you're ready to get promoted to an impactful project.

Promotion is not just about your skills, it's also about the time. Most people don't get promoted because of the time, not because their skills. There's a lot of people who are usually in a promotion cycle. So it's about finding the right time but also letting people know that you are ready. But one thing that I want you to take away from this talk is take initiative for your career. And finally, if you want to book a one-on-one to talk about your customized career plan, here's the link. Thank you so much everybody.

So I remember when I was interviewing at my current job at Miro, I was hired and I said, yeah, we're rating you as a software engineer two. And I was like, I'm senior, fine. And I think it's very confusing. Like if you step from the smaller local companies and suddenly you go to bigger international companies, you have these levels. Like you mentioned software engineer two. As far as I know, there's no software engineer one, right? Then you forgot about that one. That's where you kind of start off from. Yeah, but it should be one then. Then it's two and three and then staff, senior staff, and then principal. And then, you see, it's very confusing. But thanks a lot for clearing this out. I'm going to go start on my plan now so you'd have to do Q&A on your own.

No, just kidding, of course. We're going to go to the audience questions. First question. It's an anonymous user. Isn't staff engineer a mix of everything like manager, HR and engineer, but usually for the same or not that much more money? I love that there is a part about money here. I think what a staff engineer ultimately ends up doing depends from company to company. At bigger companies, you're not doing much of a job of an HR, as in you're not hiring people, you're not firing people. You are definitely somewhat of a manager because you're going to be mentoring people. But you don't have to deal with their promotion cycles and things like that. You're more of a mentor and a technical leader than I would say an HR. And more cross team because a team will have its own technical lead and you will be like cross team leading more technical initiatives.

Correct, exactly. Alright. Performing as someone is OK for the payment of that someone. What? Performing as someone is OK for the payment of that someone because usually companies use that to pay less for more work. How is that working for you? I don't get this one. Do you get it? I'm sorry. Can anonymous re-ask the question? I think there's a good question in there but I'm not getting it. I think they're trying to say that they try to get more work out of you but pay you less. That's just corporate for you. Well that's always the case. It's up to you to fight and take initiatives and fight for your pay raise also not your promotion, your title promotion only.

Have you ever seen someone show a lot of initiative in their work without the recognition and title or compensation and how could they navigate that? Yeah. I think this is a common thing where people are doing a lot of work but not a lot of people know about it or even if people know about it other people don't know that they're ready for or they're hoping to get promoted and I've seen this a lot. So one thing that has helped is I've mentored like junior developers and even senior developers through this and one thing that has helped is actually letting people know that what you're doing is actually at the next level and that usually helps in getting you to the next path. Yeah and if you have a good manager they will also like nudge you like hey what are you doing here note it down for the promotion cycle don't forget when we get there yeah. And usually managers good managers will tell you but a lot of managers they just don't know and not a lot of managers are good managers so you got to take ownership of that.

And usually managers good managers will tell you but a lot of managers they just don't know and not a lot of managers are good managers so you got to take ownership of that.

What made you choose to quit being a staff engineer? Well, you're seeing your staff content creator. I specifically chose to quit staff engineering because I wanted to help more people than those at my company. I wanted to use my skills to help people grow outside of my company and circle, focusing on networking beyond corporate environments. Staff engineering is just a title; what matters is learning and personal growth.

Since not everyone should aim for staff engineering, knowing when to stop pushing for it is crucial. If the responsibilities, workload, or stress cause burnout and hinder personal growth, it might be time for a break. While staff engineering offers potential earnings, staying in lower engineer levels also has its limitations. Companies establish pay brackets based on levels, affecting earning potential in the long run.

By the way, I only found out like a half a year ago I don't know if everyone knows that Slack is an acronym. Yes. Does everyone know? Raise your hand if you know. So it stands for searchable log ledger Of all company knowledge. There you go. I only found out like a half a year ago. I was finding the weird name but now I get it. So now you know too. You're here to learn, right.

Next question is from Kate. Since not everyone should be staff or pushing for it can backfire. How could you know when to stop aiming for it. This is a really good question when should you stop going for the staff level. Staff level comes with a lot of responsibilities, a lot of work, a lot of beyond 9 to 5 work. So if that is something that you feel is causing you burnout, causing you stress, making you feel like this is not something that you can do, I think it's time to take a break as well.

At the end of the day, staff engineering is just a title. It's about what you're learning and how you're growing is what matters. Yeah but I think what for most people will matter is that if you stay in the software engineer two or three there's also a ceiling to what you can earn in a month. Yeah. And the companies will have pay brackets. So you need to make that step if you want to earn more than just the inflation correction. Yeah. And staff engineering is not the only next step you can do. You can also go to a manager level, you can also go to a product level. So if you feel like engineering is not clicking for you maybe think about other domains.

But if you feel like the level is not too much for you, it's OK to be a software engineer three as well. I actually made a conscious decision when I became a father. Like I'm fine at my level now. Focus on sleeping and being a dad. And that's totally OK as well. And that's all the time we have also. So if you have any more questions for Shruti, she's going to be upstairs or online on the Zoom. So Shruti thanks a lot for being here today. We had a lot of fun and I hope everyone learned something and now you're going to get the biggest Amsterdam applause you've ever heard. Thank you. Thank you.