"Let's start with a story. Let me tell you about Alex. Alex is a staff engineer at a mid-sized tech company. They were promoted six months ago, after years of consistent delivery, mentoring teammates, and driving high impact projects. Alex has always been the go-to person from blocking gnarly tech problems. Leadership told them, you're exactly what we need at the staff level. At first, it felt great."
"The title was validating. Calendar filled with strategy sessions, big projects, big expectations. Slowly the feeling started to change. Alex was doing fewer code reviews. They weren't shipping features directly anymore. Meetings ended with vague takeaways. No one was telling them what success looked like. In one-on-ones, they'd say, I think I'm doing the right thing, but deep down, they weren't sure. The days felt full, but their impact felt fuzzy."
"Alex's story isn't rare. Many of us, I think, hit this point, especially after reaching staff, principal levels, where the rules change, feedback fades, and the growth that used to feel so clear suddenly gets murky. That's what this talk is about. It's the roadmap, or some of the ideas I wish I had as I was going through these various career ladder leve"
Promotion to staff and principal roles often shifts responsibility from hands-on coding to strategy, meetings, and ambiguous deliverables. Engineers frequently experience fewer code reviews, reduced direct shipping, and weakened feedback loops. Calendars fill with strategy sessions and leadership expectations while success criteria and impact become unclear. Sustainable senior growth requires clarifying measurable outcomes, broadening organizational influence, and adopting deliberate pillars for staff-plus development. Experience in SRE and platform engineering informs effective senior contributions. Establishing new success metrics and feedback channels restores clarity and supports continued advancement.
Read at InfoQ
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