March 21, 2020.
Most folks have worked with someone who thinks they’re never wrong. In each discussion, they lean in, broaden their shoulders and breach their way into the role of the decider. They’ll continue debating until their perspective wins the day or time runs out. They are often right, but right in a way that sucks the oxygen out of the room. As their tenure at a company increases, they may fancy that they’ve become very persuasive, but frequently it’s a form of persuasion characterized by the resignation of their peers.
March 19, 2020.
At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior Software Engineer, the so-called career level, in five to eight years. At that point your path branches, and you have the opportunity to pursue engineering management or continue down the path of technical excellence to become a Staff Engineer.
March 17, 2020.
Late last year I had coffee with Keith Adams, and we ended up chatting a bunch about migrations in the context of making it easier to extend an unruly codebase. The discussion went in a bunch of directions, including chatting a bit about Building Evolutionary Architecture. One idea that Keith mentioned in that discussion has particularly stuck with me: most changes happen in the same handful of files, and those files are the most effective place to invest into quality improvement.
March 7, 2020.
I'm working on a small project that involves interviewing a number of folks to capture their experience becoming and working as a Staff engineer. Hopefully the first stories will be ready to post in a couple of weeks, but what I've been surprised by is just how tricky it can be to get good interview notes.
March 7, 2020.
When I was working on "Your first 90 days as CTO or VP Engineering", one of the most valuable things I did was build a list of resources for folks (especially me) to continue their learning and exploration. Recently, I’ve been focused on the question of “What does it mean to be a Staff or Staff-plus engineer, and how do you get there?”, and have gathered this collection of resources for folks who are looking to grow as or into such roles.