The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change

by Tanya Reilly

So, if you want to make broad, forward-looking decisions, you need people who can see the big picture. But why can’t that be managers? And why can’t the chief technology officer (CTO) just know all of the “business things,” translate them into technical outcomes, and pass on what matters? On some teams, they can. For a small team, a manager can often function as the most experienced technologist, owning major decisions and technical direction. In a small company, a CTO can stay deeply involved in the gory details of every decision. These companies probably don’t need staff engineers. But management authority can overshadow technical judgment: reports may feel uncomfortable arguing with a manager’s technical decisions even when there’s a better solution available. And managing other humans is itself a full-time job. Someone who’s investing in being a good people manager will have less time available to stay up to date with technical developments, and anyone who is managing to stay deeply “in the weeds” will be less able to meet the needs of their reports. In the short term that can be OK: some teams don’t need a lot of attention to continue on a successful path. But when there’s tension between the needs of the team and the needs of the technical strategy, a manager has to choose where to focus. Either the team’s members or its technical direction get neglected.