Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track by Will Larson

Author:Will Larson [Larson, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Will Larson
Published: 2021-02-27T23:00:00+00:00

Ras Kasa Williams - Staff Engineer at Mailchimp

This story was recorded in July, 2020. Learn more about Kasa on Linkedin.

Tell us a little about your current role: where do you work, your title and generally the sort of work that you and your team do.

I’m a Staff Engineer at Mailchimp, working in the Data Services engineering group. Data Services can be seen as the home of data engineering within the company. Our group builds systems that primarily support our data science and analyst teams (i.e. product analysts, finance analysts, marketing analysts, etc.).

I have been serving as one of the tech leads in this group where I focused on building scalable data processing pipelines that power our internal analytics platform and supporting the advancement of critical business intelligence initiatives. I have been performing a significant portion of the Eng Manager responsibilities for the team as well (although I wasn’t formally the Eng Manager). After almost 2 years in this role, I am actively transitioning it to another engineer.

What does a “normal” Staff-plus engineer do at your company? Does your role look that way or does it differ?

At Mailchimp, once you become a Staff Engineer, you’re a member of “Engineering Leadership”. Since a formal engineering ladder was implemented only a couple years ago, the answer to “What does it mean to be a Staff Engineer?” or “What does it mean to be a member of Engineering Leadership?” will likely vary.

In my view, it’s about thinking globally. That means partnering with other members of that cohort to understand the company–wide business / product strategy and distill that into an Engineering–wide technical strategy that seeks to enable execution for Product, Marketing, and our peers across other functions. That means partnering to improve on processes like hiring, onboarding, cross–team communication, and production operations. That means partnering to grow the entire department’s technical and social skills.

It’s about taking that global thinking and applying it locally. That means aligning your team’s (technical) initiatives / roadmaps to the Engineering–wide technical strategy; and being intentional about when you veer off of that path to serve the needs of your team’s immediate stakeholders. That means collaborating with your team’s managers in adopting successful practices in hiring, onboarding, and production operations from other teams; and sharing practices from your team that would be beneficial for others. That means taking context from company–wide business / product strategy and translating that to how it impacts your team’s immediate projects. That means being intentional about creating opportunities for your team’s individual contributors to grow their skills, get visibility, and access to others across the company.

Of course, I don’t get it right all the time. But it’s been a successful mode of operation for me.

How do you spend your time day-to-day?

As mentioned before, I have been serving as one of the tech leads in Data Services (and performing a lot of the Eng Manager responsibilities).

As tech lead, I was responsible for defining, and accountable for execution of, my team’s technical strategy and approach. I worked

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