How to Become a Staff Engineer

Shruti Kapoor is a former staff engineer at PayPal and a lead member of technical staff at Slack. She is currently a full-time content creator focused on helping others achieve their career goals.

A staff engineer is a technical leader who focuses on making teams effective. They build systems to scale, evaluate technology, make organizational impacts, mentor team members, and lead projects across multiple teams.

To become a staff engineer, you need to demonstrate technical excellence, make organizational impacts, mentor and develop team members, and lead projects. It's important to have a support network, communicate your goals, and gather proof of your impact for promotion considerations.

Common misconceptions include waiting for someone to tell you you're ready, needing to be a deep technical expert before leading projects, avoiding networking, and thinking that doing more work automatically leads to promotion.

The pillars of staff engineering typically include technical excellence, organizational impact, mentorship and team development, and project leadership.

Preparation involves assessing current skills, identifying gaps, choosing impactful projects, building a support network, and regularly communicating achievements and goals with managers and peers.

A staff engineer should work on projects that span the organization, showcase deep technical problem-solving, and involve leading and growing a team.

Networking is crucial because it helps others recognize your work and impact. Building a support network can influence promotion committees and ensure your contributions are known.

A promotion packet should include a BRAC document, proof of accomplishments, a career plan, testimonials, and data showing the impact of your work.

Shruti Kapoor left her position to become a full-time content creator, aiming to help more people grow in their careers beyond the confines of a single company.