Ask HN: How to become a ridiculously good back end staff eng?
When you are trying to become a good junior engineer, or a good senior engineer, it feels more like &quot;checking off the boxes on the checklist&quot;. There are many skills that are expected of you, and you should gain them.<p>But you are kind of past that point. There are a lot of different &quot;archetypes&quot; for being a really good staff engineer. You can become very skilled at a particular technology, or very knowledgeable about a particular product, or very politically effective within a particular organization. For different people, the best strategy here is different. It depends what you&#x27;re good at, and what you really want to be good at.<p>For your question - if you joined a new team, what skills would you really need? The answer is, <i>it depends on what the team needs</i>.<p>I think you might be focusing on the wrong details. The first step in taking your career further is to find a team that is a good fit for you. That means two things.<p>1. The team&#x27;s mission is big enough that it needs a staff engineer (or another staff engineer)<p>2. The skills needed for the role of staff engineer on this team are skills that you have or can acquire<p>On some teams it will just be impossible for you to become a staff engineer, because there just isn&#x27;t enough opportunity or importance, as perceived by the management. On some teams it will be impossible for you to become a staff engineer, because it will require a skill that just isn&#x27;t you. So go find the right team, and then it will be far more obvious what you need to do to become a ridiculously good backend staff engineer.<p>Feel free to email me if you&#x27;d like to chat more, I have been the engineering manager for a number of people who have gone through the senior -&gt; staff period in their careers....