Staff Engineer

Building and Formalizing a Career Ladder in a Startup

Small startups often lack career ladders, but formalizing them is not recommended for teams with less than 30 employees. To help engineers grow their skills, managers should identify the skill sets they lack and line up appropriate training and incentives. For those on the management track, they should be given function, task, client, and project management responsibilities to master before taking on human management. Soft skills and training courses should also be lined up to help organize and structure employee progress. Ultimately, it is important to remember that every person is an individual and requires an individual approach.

Gaining Deeper Knowledge In Order To Grow in Your Career

This article discusses the importance of investing time and resources into areas that are relevant to one's career growth. It suggests that one should contemplate their career trajectory and look to companies they admire for guidance. Additionally, it recommends that one-on-ones and 360 reviews are great opportunities to discuss career objectives and to receive help and guidance from a manager or leader.

What Makes the Perfect One-on-One?

This article discusses how to effectively manage a small team by having frequent one-on-ones, creating transparency, and delegating resources. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding each team member's motivations, providing a safe space for them to express their feelings, and helping them to manage their time and resources in order to reach their career goals.

Building a Functionality-Rich Product From Scratch

This article discusses the approach taken by a team building an energy management tool for commercial buildings. The team decided to start small by focusing on a single customer, building, and HVAC zone. This enabled them to answer technical questions and gather customer feedback without being overwhelmed by complexity. The article also provides lessons learned, such as starting small, being ruthless about what to eliminate, and being strategic about what to cut out.

I had to reorganize the way my team worked

The manager of a quickly growing company had difficulty managing 15 direct reports due to the number of projects they had to work on. To address this issue, they prioritized projects, paired engineers according to their expertise and seniority, and elevated some engineers to the role of project lead. This resulted in a more motivated and happier team. The manager learned that it is important to prioritize and reorganize when a company grows, and that it is not beneficial to let members work alone on a project for weeks.

Working yourself out of your role: the succession plan

In order to take on new opportunities and grow in their career, the author learned to create a succession plan to transition their current role to someone else. This enabled them to take on broader responsibilities and move on from their current role. The author recommends writing the succession plan as soon as possible, revisiting it regularly, and having a mutual understanding of each other's roles with their team of managers.