7 Levels Of Engineers Describe Software’s Most Important Skill
Summary
TLDRThe video features interviews with engineers at various career levels, from new grads to distinguished engineers. They share insights on important skills at each level - for entry-levels, following coding patterns; for mid-levels, debugging and root causing issues; for senior staffs, impacting the broader team; and for distinguished engineers, understanding the business and earning trust across the organization. The video also notes that reaching the most senior levels requires long tenures, company growth providing opportunities, and combining talent with business context and scope.
Takeaways
- 😀 New grads should focus on following established patterns in the codebase to complete tasks
- 👩💻 Mid-level engineers need efficient log analysis skills to debug issues
- 🙌 Senior engineers should align projects to business goals and stakeholder needs
- 💡 Staff engineers should focus on upleveling their teams for multiplicative impact
- 🔍 Principal engineers need great technical communication to delegate effectively
- 📈 Spending many years at a fast growing company enables promotions
- 🤝 Distinguished engineers combine business knowledge, people skills and technology
- 😊 Pursue impactful projects to advance to senior levels
- 🤔 Constant job hopping limits career growth
- ⌛ Growth opportunities come from solving business problems over time
Q & A
What are some key technologies used by iOS engineers at Slack?
-Uriel mentions primarily working in Swift and some Bazel for the build systems.
What advice does Uriel give to junior engineers at big tech companies like Slack?
-Uriel advises taking time to build connections not just on your team but also with other teams since they have deeper knowledge in different areas that you can learn from.
What does Dipa at Qualcomm work on and what languages does she use?
-Dipa works on the camera processing chip that goes in phones, using mainly C++ and Python.
What does Richard at Meta say is the most important skill for a senior engineer?
-Richard says aligning project outcome expectations and risks with stakeholders, and making sure the projects are important for the company and your own growth.
What advice does Richard have for new senior engineers at big tech companies?
-His advice is to focus on bringing people along and building long-term collaborations across teams.
What team is Sammy on at Gusto and what technologies do they use?
-Sammy is on the communications platform team at Gusto, using Ruby on Rails on the backend and Typescript and React on the frontend.
What does Sammy say is the most important skill at the staff engineer level?
-He says it's leveling up your teammates through feedback and mentoring so they can work independently and have multiplicative impact.
What does Kaik at Instacart work on?
-Kaik works on the smart carts team that builds carts running the Android OS after Instacart acquired Caper.
What three things does Kaik say contribute to having impact as a senior engineer?
-He says identifying opportunities, executing work to deliver impact, and measuring the impact.
What communication skill does Pong say is critical for principal engineers?
-He emphasizes the importance of technical communication - being able to effectively delegate tasks and extract the right information from teammates.
Outlines
😀 Introductions from entry level to senior engineers
The first paragraph has introductions from several engineers at different levels. An entry level iOS engineer at Slack talks about learning from existing code patterns. A mid-level engineer at Qualcomm emphasizes efficient log analysis for debugging. A Meta senior engineer highlights aligning projects with stakeholder expectations.
😉 Transitioning from individual contributor to enabling teams
The second paragraph covers advice from more senior ICs. A Gusto staff engineer stresses the importance of upleveling teammates to have multiplicative impact. A senior staff engineer at Instacart advises identifying high impact opportunities and measuring that impact. A Pinterest principal engineer highlights efficient technical communication to delegate tasks.
🤔 Observations on growth, scope and time spent at companies
The third paragraph shares observations from the interviewer. They note that the most senior engineers had been at their companies for 8+ years, combining talent with business understanding. The engineers' companies also experienced tremendous growth during their tenures, providing opportunities to drive impact.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡engineer
💡skill
💡advice
💡technology
💡team
💡company
💡level
💡skill
💡growth
💡time
Highlights
Uriel talks about following existing patterns in the codebase to build out features
Dipa talks about efficient log analysis and figuring out what is the important part of a log file as the most important skill
Richard talks about the most important skill being avoiding roadblocks during project execution
Sammy talks about the importance of upleveling the whole team rather than just solo carrying everyone
Kek talks about identifying opportunities for impact, executing on impactful work, and measuring impact
Pong talks about the importance of technical communication and being able to delegate tasks effectively
Andrew talks about needing a deep understanding of both people and business as well as technology
Senior engineers emphasized being at their companies for 8+ years to reach senior levels
The companies experienced massive growth during the employees' tenures, providing opportunities
Uriel focuses on following patterns for entry-level tasks
Dipa focuses on debugging and root causing issues at a mid-level
Richard focuses on stakeholder alignment and project risk at a senior level
Sammy focuses on team upleveling as a staff-level engineer
Kek focuses on impact at the senior staff level
Constant job hopping hampers growth beyond senior levels
Transcripts
can you share your name your company and
what level you are my name is euriel I'm
a ugrad iOS engineer at slack can you
talk about what team you're on and what
technology or language you're using you
know given that I'm iOS engineer
primarily work in Swift and there's also
some basil for the build systems I'm on
the mobile Enterprise team and working
on features for the largest slack
customers what would you say is the most
important skill the most important skill
as a newr would be just you know
learning from the existing Solutions in
the code base to problems like you know
how to create a label how to create a
button how to connect some two screens
as um these are very common things and
these simple things are what you know
you'll mainly be doing I guess at you
know the new grad level a company like
slack or Facebook or Google they're
probably fairly well- defined ways to do
all these things if you were working
with another Junior engineer what would
be one piece of advice you would give
them take time to build out those
connections you know not just your team
the other teams you know different teams
are working on different things and they
have access to deeper knowledge in some
other areas I love that I mean just
don't only rely on your manager or your
onboarding buddy there's so many other
smart people at these companies that you
can really learn a lot from what's your
name where do you work and and what
level are you uh my name is Dipa I work
at Qualcomm and I'm a midlevel what do
you work on at Qualcomm and what
programming language do you primarily
use uh I work on the camera processing
chip so that goes in the phone um and
mostly I work in C++ and python what
would you say is the most important
skill at that level most important skill
would probably be efficient log analysis
trying to root cause where the issue is
and pull in the correct people when you
have a bunch of information in log file
how do you parse it get information out
of it and then use that to debug or
figure out what went wrong what would
you say as like one really important
piece of advice I would probably say
keep notes on like anything that you
found helpful in like ramp up or any of
the issues you're working on uh more
likely it's going to be useful later on
to you can you share your name where you
work and what level you are yeah my name
is Richard I work at meta and I am a
senior engineer ic5 can you talk about
what team you're on I work on the
company's mobile UI platform and we work
on different projects to help accelerate
mobile development within the company
yeah what would you say is the most
important skill for a senior engineer E5
level I would I would recommend really
aligning the outcome expectation and
risks of a project with the relevant
stakeholders and also making sure that
the projects you work on are important
for both the company but also your own
growth and interests so someone coming
in as a senior engineer in big Tech what
would be your top piece of advice I
think the first thing is bringing people
along with you a lot of collaborations
span across multiple halves and you you
kind of build this recurring
relationship with people being sure to
bring them along and build long-term
relationships someone once told me that
you can go fast or you can go far really
putting importance on treating the
people you work with while making sure
they feel appreciated and making sure
that you always help people back when
they help you for an entry level or new
grad engineer the job is more task
oriented so Uriel talks about following
existing patterns in the codebase to
build out features as a mid-level you
get to the point where you are
responsible not only for writing the
code but also maintaining and debugging
the code so Dipa talks about efficient
log analysis and figuring out what is
the important part of a log file as the
most important skill a senior engineer
delivers a project end to end so Richard
talks about the most important skill
being avoiding roadblocks during project
execution I put the full interview with
each engineer in the Taro app and I also
included Engineers who I interviewed but
didn't have time to include in this
video so I'll leave a link for that in
the description check it out at joint
taro.com can you tell us your name where
you work and what level you are yeah my
name is Sammy W um I'm a Staff engineer
at Gusto I've been there for about six
and a half years at this point what team
are you on and what technologies are you
using um I'm on the coms platform team
at Gusto we basically uh build apis for
teams to send messages to our C our
customers and then also you know make
sure that the messages get shown to the
customers whether in app through email
things like that primarily use Ruby un
rails on the back end and then on the
front end typescript and react what
would you say is the most important
skill for someone at your level yeah I
think it's been a lot of like trying to
level up my teammates and making sure
they're you know able to learn and like
make sure they really internalize the
feedback and are able to become
self-sufficient very independent for
most people you can't really build
everything yourself um so it's important
to be able to like Leverage your
teammates um you know the entire
engineering or to like push forward on
various initiatives yeah yeah I feel
like at that level it's really about
upleveling the whole team it's
multiplicative impact rather than just
like you know solo carrying everyone you
have to make sure everyone's getting
better someone was coming in as a staff
engineer at a company like Gusto or
another kind of medium large company
what would be one piece of advice you
would have for them I would say try to
meet a lot of different people learn
about like the problems you know as a
new person you can really only learn
that from other people yeah can you
share your name where you work and what
level you are for sure um my name is
kaik gopal I work at instacart and I
work as a senior staff engineer I wonder
if you can talk about what you do at
instacart instacart is a grocery
technology comp company we acquired a
startup called Caper which builds smart
carts the smart carts like run aosb so
like the Android operating system and
I've built my career around like mobile
development but what would you say is
the most important skill it all boils
down to impactful work you know you
might think like oh if you get really
good at a technology like that helps for
sure but I think an important aspect of
like you know being successful at like
you know the higher senior levels is one
identifying the opportunities for impact
second is about obviously executing on
that work and Landing that impact and
the third important piece is measuring
the impact right I think all of those
three have to come together and that's a
very valuable skill I'd say more so than
you being like you know like the best
cotland developer out there advice you
would have for someone coming in at
senior staff or principal engineer a
large part of it is just like learning
from other folks it's about talking to
different like stakeholders right like
you know talk to your product people
talk to your support people talk to your
business folks obviously you will keep
talking to the engineering like talk to
each of them find out some of the areas
that the company as a whole is either
like struggling that's immediately an
you know opportunity for like having
that impact or even like with your other
Engineers if you find like constantly
people are like blocked or like you know
there's a common problem again like you
know you should have like those alarm
signals flashing because those are those
opportunities for impact can you share
your name where you work and what level
you are my name is pong exai I'm a
princi engineer at Pinterest how long
have you been at Pinterest uh I've been
at Pinterest for uh almost 9 years now
I'm wearing the Pinterest shirt in your
honor we actually worked together at a
startup and we joined Pinterest through
this acquisition so it's cool to kind of
see you grow through the company can you
talk about what team are you on and what
technologies you're using yeah sure uh
so I'm on the atg team at Pinterest so
it's the Advanced Technology Group uh so
the idea of the team is that we work on
cutting HDML to improve the product in
one way or the other as a principal
engineer L8 very senior level what would
you say is the most important skill I
would say the most important skill for a
principal engineer is uh the technical
communication once you get to a certain
level you can't really do it by yourself
so the ability to let's say work through
someone else delegate tasks and so on is
pretty important when you need to work
through someone else having really
efficient communication between you know
you and them is actually really
important you need to be able to ask
like the right right questions so that
you can
uh extract information that you need
from them to make the technical guidance
another principal engineer what advice
would you have to share with them you
have a lot more eyes on you than than
what you think you're actually like a
really big part in setting the right uh
engineering culture you want people to
be you know really technical you want
people to write code the first thing
they would do is look uh at the
principal engineer right see what kind
of example that he he or she set can you
share your name company and level yeah
my name is Andrew z i was at Pinterest
six months ago I was a distinguished
engineer uh now I'm starting a company
uh in the AI space right awesome how
long were you at Pinterest for I was at
Pinterest for nine years what team were
you on for that duration but overall the
area that I've always focused on was
around deep learning um starting with
like computer vision really applying
computer vision to the different models
within the company for our
recommendation systems I spent my entire
career at Pinterest essentially working
on different parts of that do you know
how many distinguished Engineers were
there at Pinterest there is nothing
higher for IC there were four
distinguished Engineers out of 1200
Engineers what would you say as the most
important skill at that level when I was
a distinguished engineer the skill set
that I felt like I had was a really good
understanding of both the business cuz I
was at Pinterest for for 9 years had a
really good understanding of what can
impact the business and then having the
experience to to know that like you
can't do this alone you have to have
trust from all the different parts of
the company and you have to have trust
in your team really help them succeed in
in their own careers if I were to
summarize like one skill that really
helped it really was uh understanding of
both people in business as well as
technology what advice would you have
for an engineer to succeed as a
distinguished engineer I think it's the
pursuit of impact you become a
distinguished engineer because the
business finds you valuable to the point
they trust you to lead these large
functions find out what is the most
impactful thing that you can do and then
figure out how you can get there like
who do you need to convince for what do
you have the team needed to make that
change and it's really hard to be able
to navigate an organization of that
scale but that's part of the job huge
thank you to everyone who participated I
wanted to share a few observations which
might be helpful to reflect first each
of the most senior Engineers I talked to
were at their company for a very long
time kek was the L7 senior staff
engineer instacart and he had been there
for more than eight years and then the
distinguished engineer L9 Andrew at
Pinterest he was there for more than 9
years to get to a very senior level you
need experience you need time in the
organization in the company
constant job hopping is a recipe to stay
stuck at the L5 senior level or below
forever the second observation I had is
that each of the last few companies that
we heard about Gusto instacart and
Pinterest they all experienced hyper
growth during the time that the employee
was there the number of customers
revenue and employees all grew by orders
of magnitude and that growth led to not
only problems but also opportunities for
engineers everyone at the senior levels
of engineering is obviously talented and
hardworking but you need to combine that
with the Deep understanding of the
business and earning enough scope to
actually land a promotion let me know
what you thought of the video or if you
want to see more content in this format
which is relatively new for me I put the
full interview with every engineer I
talk to in the Taro app joint tar.com
thanks for watching and I will see you
in the next
[Music]
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