The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change

Alot of people enter software development because they don’t want their primary job task to consist of interacting with people. However, career progressions often define management as the next step after being a senior developer. To those who don’t want to be with people full-time, this hierarchy can make a dead end. In recent years, the pathway of a staff engineer has opened up. Staff engineers are in charge of the technical direction of their team and pushing hard projects foward, but they do not have direct reports. In such a system, managers deal with people issues and do not have to be technical masters themselves. In this book, Tanya Reilly explains in clear words what this position is about to encourage companies to adopt the pathway and individuals to contribute uniquely as individual contributors.Many times, technical books, even on non-technical topics, aren’t written in conversational tone. Thus, readers can be turned off by a writer’s style instead of ingesting their content. Fortunately, this book is not one of those and is pleasant to read cover to cover. Among other topics, Tanya describes what a staff engineer does, talks about possible political pitfalls, and imagines what career development looks like. The reader leaves the book with a 360-degree picture of what a role as a staff engineer might look like.Personally, I’m not interested in the staff engineering path. I’m most interested in leading others down that pipeline. This book helped me see how to guide my colleagues towards a fulfilling career that doesn’t involve having direct reports. It certainly met that aim quite well.Those involved in the later stages of careers developing software should read this book, regardless of their role. It’s the best snapshot of this career trajectory that I’ve read so far. It applies to both future staff developers, who might take the path, as well as managers, who might guide others down it. It can apply to other engineering and technical pathways although it has an admittedly strong bias towards software development. Reilly simply shines a bright beacon on this emerging career direction that can benefit individuals along with businesses significantly in years to come.

The ideologies for building a great career in software were always beneath my tongue. This book help me see my ideas and put them into practice in a more efficient way. It helped me put my career in my own hands against and carries a lot of wisdom for all levels id software engineers.

According to Sandro Mancuso, there are 4 kinds of books we have read to advance our careers:1- Technology-specific books are very valuable but they expire.2- Conceptual books are the books that give us the foundation to advance in our careers.3- Behavioral books are the books that make us more efficient when working in teams and organizing ourselves.4- Revolutionary books (some call them classics) are the ones that changed the way we work.We should favor conceptual and behavioral books for long-term career progression, starting with the revolutionary ones and read technology-specific books for short and medium-term plans.Tanya's book is a technology-agnostic, conceptual & behavioral book at the same time and to me already revolutionary. It has all the elements to change the way we work as an industry.I read the early release of this book on O’Reilly back in April and I have been catching up on every new chapter as Tanya wrote them. I have accumulated hundreds of notes and highlights useful not only to Staff Engineers, but to Directors of Engineering like myself and to be honest to any Engineering Leadership role.Can’t recommend this book strongly enough!

I ran a book discussion at work with a number of like minded co-workers. Everyone found it extremely valuable. Initially I didn't think lower level engineers would get anything out of it, but now I think developers of all levels should read it. It helped me by providing a framework against which I could evaluate my own position and career goals. We're taking a brief break for the summer, but will return to do a deeper dive on some of the chapters that resonated with us.

I was recommended this book from a colleague, and it's very good. I have been in tech professionally for over 10 years, and learned many things from this book - and how to formulate what I already knew even better. 10/10, and i dont even like reading tech books usually!

I am an SEII and I read this book every morning before my daily standups. I always find relating stories. I am learning a lot for my future self from this book. A must read for anyone who intends to grow.

Very interesting book with a lot of good practical examples. The book covers all aspects of Staff+ (IC) engineering. In addition, it has a lot of excellent references to other articles, blogs, and books. The book doesn't have to be read from beginning to end. You can read chapters in any order.I recommend reading this book if you are new to the Staff+ path. Even though this book targets Staff+ engineers, there is a lot of wisdom for any level of developers.

The content is great if you're starting as a Staff engineer, but does not actually shows the path to go there (as it's on the book The Manager's Path).The author uses a lot of metaphors that may help or distract the reader trying to land it to the real world.Some of the advices are the same ones that you find on The Manager's Path, mainly on the softs kills/ people skills.It's an ok book to read but was expecting a similar structure or consistency with The Manager's Path.I recommend the Kindle version, the book not use code, and diagrams and images fits on the Kindle screen without a problem.The book physical state arrives a bit damage (in the corners) but not too much to get it back. The seller should get more attention on the envelope mechanism.