Is There a Difference Between Staff Engineers and Management?

Please note that this episode contains brief mention of suicide.

Today's guest needs no introduction! Of course, they will get one anyway:

Will Larson is the CTO of Calm and has worked at Stripe, Uber, and Digg. He is also an author and has written two books, one of which is on Staff Engineering and serves as the inspiration for this podcast! In our conversation with Will, we discuss one of his earliest blog posts on a catastrophic launch at Digg and why he felt it was important to write about his experiences. We talk with Will about the expanding role of Staff Engineers and how that is affected by the rate of change in the field of startups and technology companies as a whole. Later, we explore the tracks of technical leadership and management within technology companies and the pros and cons of the pendulum model. Will shares what he’s learned about the skills needed for leadership positions and why working with a team of managers versus a team of engineers requires a completely different skillset. After that, we talk about Will’s career in writing and public speaking. We loved having Will on the show, so join us for engaging conversation spanning many topics from the potential for leadership in technology companies to the joy of writing!

Links

• Will Larson on LinkedIn
• Will Larson on Github
• Will Larson on Amazon
• Irrational Exuberance
• Calm
• Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management
• Digg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity
• High Output Management
• The Engineer/Manager Pendulum