Staff eng

Some simple insights from the Staff eng podcast:

• Everything is your responsibility. If it needs doing then do it
• Meet with consumers, sit there while they try your new product. Take feedback and meet again 1 week later to show that their issues have been resolved.
• Do pair programming!
• Spend time finding out what the biggest problems are that you can fix - then fix them
• Communication is probably the most important staff-eng skill
• Use only soft power

Work staff engineers do:

• Solve business problems
• Mentor and sponsor people
• Fix issues/unblock and remove friction for other developers
• Set technical direction