How Staff Engineer, Engineering Manager (EM), Product Manager (PM), Tech Lead Manager (TLM) and Technical Program Manager (TPM) positions overlap in Big Tech and at high-growth startups – and their di
Engineering Career Paths at Big Tech and High-Growth Startups
Levels at big tech, the most common career paths, and what comes after making it to Staff
Staff archetypes
Most career ladders define a single, uniform set of expectations for Staff engineers operating within the company. Everyone benefits from clear role expectations, but career ladders are a tool that applies better against populations than people. This is particularly true for Staff-plus engineers, whose career ladders often paper over several distinct roles hidden behind a single moniker. The more folks I spoke with about the role of Staff-plus engineers at their company, the better their experiences began to cluster into four distinct patterns. Most companies emphasized one or two of the patterns, and one pattern only existed in companies with many hundreds or thousands of engineers. A few companies didn’t feature any technical leadership pattern and pushed all their experienced engineers towards engineering management. In literature, recurring character patterns are called archetypes, such as the “hero” or the “trickster,” and the archetype term is helpful for labeling these frequent variants of Staff-plus engineers.
Don't Feed the Thought Leaders
In this article, the author shares their experience as an engineering manager and the challenges they faced when trying to reach alignment and prev...
Engineering managers have a new job description
Why engineering managers are expected to be hands-on again and how AI tools are making it possible to stay technically sharp while still leading.
Management Coach & Trainer for the Tech Industry
Lara Hogan levels up tech industry organizations and managers through her coaching and workshops.
The engineering manager's attention budget
Every Engineering Manager has 5 jobs - most distribute their 100 'attention points' across only 2-3 of them
Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track
At most technology companies, you'll reach Senior Software Engineer, the 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.
Hire More Women (and people with diverse experiences and identities) In Tech
Stop missing out on exceptional tech talent. Diverse senior leaders deliver better business outcomes and better products and services.
Quality Assurance Jobs
The premier job board for Quality Assurance, SDET, and all other Test Automation Engineer opportunities
Scaling Engineering Teams: Lessons from Google, Facebook, and Netflix
After spending over a decade in engineering leadership roles at some of the world’s most chaotic innovation factories—Google, Facebook, and Netflix—I’ve learned one universal truth: scaling e…
Long live the engineering manager
AI can automate status updates but the engineering manager’s real work of coaching, alignment, and translation is growing faster than AI can replace it.
This 90-Day Plan Turns Engineers into Remarkable Managers
Twitter's former Director of Engineering shares the plan he uses to transform engineers into successful and happy managers.
Hiring (and Retaining) a Diverse Engineering Team
Stories from six engineering leaders who succeeded in building and growing diverse teams. Hiring approaches, retention tactics and strategies.
Leveling Up: Career Advancement for Software Developers | Peter Lyons
Staff Engineer, Back End
Brian Jones's Manager Readme
Brian Jones, Engineering Manager at Anonymous: Mission Statement In order to understand how I approach leadership and management it may be helpful to set for...
