The Staff Engineer's Path

Chapter 9. What’s Next?

We started this book with a journey to understand what your job is. Since then, you’ve unpacked your scope and primary focus, mapped your org, developed strategy and vision, prioritized work, led projects, navigated obstacles, modeled good engineering, and brought your colleagues up a level. It’s been a journey! And now we’re at the final topic: we’re back to you. But instead of looking more at what you’re doing now, we’re going to look at where you go from here. We’re going to look at leveling up yourself.

What does leveling up even mean? It depends on the circumstances and it depends on you. So we’ll start by returning to a theme throughout this book: what’s important? We’ll look at the big picture of your career, where you’re going, and what you need from your next steps. Then we’ll take a look at your current role and evaluate whether it’s a step toward where you want to go.

The staff engineer role is loosely defined, so it’s not surprising that the paths onward are loosely defined too. We’ll look at some of the options you have, and I’ll share stories from other people who have traveled onward from staff+ roles. These stories are just a sampler of the range of things you can do, but they might serve as inspiration for your own journey.

To finish, we’ll consider the influence you’ll have throughout your career. As a senior person, you’re one of the leaders of our industry. You’re responsible for the choices you make, and you’ll influence other people’s ...