Skip to main content

Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

 StaffEng Banner

Nice blog post about staff (or engineering manager) archetypes:

Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track
  • The Tech Lead guides the approach and execution of a particular team. They partner closely with a single manager, but sometimes they partner with two or three managers within a focused area. Some companies also have a Tech Lead Manager role, which is similar to the Tech Lead archetype but exists on the engineering manager ladder and includes people management responsibilities.
  • The Architect is responsible for the direction, quality, and approach within a critical area. They combine in-depth knowledge of technical constraints, user needs, and organization level leadership.
  • The Solver digs deep into arbitrarily complex problems and finds an appropriate path forward. Some focus on a given area for long periods. Others bounce from hotspot to hotspot as guided by organizational leadership.
  • The Right Hand extends an executive's attention, borrowing their scope and authority to operate particularly complex organizations. They provide additional leadership bandwidth to leaders of large-scale organizations.
This blog also has a nice cal overview to visualize the different working approaches for each archetype:
Example calendar for a Tech Lead archetype


If you want to read about this, checkout the book Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track!

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Favorite Posts

j2obc - A Java to iOS Objective-C translation tool and runtime

What J2ObjC Is J2ObjC is an open-source command-line tool from Google that translates Java code to Objective-C for the iOS (iPhone/iPad) platform. This tool enables Java code to be part of an iOS application's build, as no editing of the generated files is necessary. The goal is to write an app's non-UI code (such as data access, or application logic) in Java, which is then shared by web apps (using GWT), Android apps, and iOS apps. J2ObjC supports most Java language and runtime features required by client-side application developers, including exceptions, inner and anonymous classes, generic types, threads and reflection. JUnit test translation and execution is also supported. J2ObjC is currently between alpha and beta quality. Several Google projects rely on it, but when new projects first start working with it, they usually find new bugs to be fixed. Apparently every Java developer has a slightly different way of using Java, and the tool hasn't translated all possib...
Post a Comment
Read more

Google Drive versus Dropbox

MacWorld: Online Storage Face-Off: Google Drive vs. Dropbox
Post a Comment
Read more

PlistBuddy

If you want to generate a Plist within the shell script: The PlistBuddy command is used to read and modify values inside of a plist. Unless specified by the -c switch, PlistBuddy runs in interactive mode. Apple PlistBuddy ManPage
Post a Comment
Read more

App Indexing

A better search experience for apps and users with linking to in-app content. Google is working with app developers and webmasters to index the content of apps and relate them to websites. When relevant, Google Search results on Android will include deep links to apps. App Indexing
Post a Comment
Read more

Why The Microsoft Surface Just Died Last Week

That was when the company’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, announced the launch of Office for the iPad. He emphasized the company’s focus on cloud and mobile for the future. “We think about users both as individuals and organizations spanning across all devices,” Nadella said during the launch event. And what he said effectively killed the Microsoft Surface. Forbes.com
Post a Comment
Read more

CFPropertyList

The PHP implementation of Apple's PropertyList plist can handle XML PropertyLists as well as binary PropertyLists. It offers functionality to easily convert data between worlds, e.g. recalculating timestamps from unix epoch to apple epoch and vice versa. A feature to automagically create (guess) the plist structure from a normal PHP data structure will help you dump your data to plist in no time. github
Post a Comment
Read more

MobileIron

Advanced Mobile Device Management Mobile Data Security, Visibility and Control for Enterprises Phones are replaceable. Data is not. Advanced Mobile Device Management combines traditional mobile device management capabilities with advanced data visibility and control powered by the Virtual Smartphone Management Platform architecture. The administrator can manage the lifecycle of the phone and its data, from registration to retirement, and quickly get smartphone operations under control. Tour the Enterprise Smartphone Management Dashboard. Multi-OS Device Management Central web-based console across operating systems Inventory and asset management Device configuration Encryption policy (phone, SD) Lockdown security (camera, SD, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) Password enforcement Remote lock and wipe File distribution End-user self-service App Management Inventory Secure publishing and delivery Rogue app protection Remote Control Real-time, permission-based Enterprise Data Bo...
Post a Comment
Read more