Credit Karma is a company that helps people understand their credit. Today’s guest, Mason Jones, was brought onto the Credit Karma team to move the company from a monolith to microservices. The company has grown almost four-fold since he joined, and Mason is now a senior staff engineer whose role swings from engineering to project management to technical writing, depending on the project he is working on. Prior to working at Credit Karma, Mason was involved in a number of small start-ups, and he explains how these experiences have translated into very useful skills in his current job. He also explains how he shares these skills with other engineers in the company, and some of the challenges that have arisen during mentoring sessions. Security, velocity and reliability are core values at Credit Karma and Mason shares how he, as a leader, upholds them, and how he continually expands his knowledge in order to have the maximum positive impact on the company. LinksMason Jones on LinkedInCredit Karma

Guest Lorin Hochstein, Netflix engineer, shares insights on resilience, peer-to-peer learning, and close call value. Discusses grassroots programs at Netflix, measuring negative outcomes, and driving cultural change. Emphasizes knowledge sharing, career transitions, operational expertise, complexity management, and influential resources.

Stacey Gammon, a Principal Software Engineer at Elastic, discusses scalability challenges in rapid growth, project management, the value of saying no to new projects, retrospectives, formal mentorship programs, one-on-one meetings, and team communication. Insights on tech leadership roles, Kibana platform, career transitions, prioritizing technical debt, API documentation evolution, and effective project management in a remote-first company.

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!LinksWill Larson on LinkedInWill Larson on GithubWill Larson on AmazonIrrational ExuberanceCalmStaff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management trackAn Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering ManagementDigg's v4 launch: an optimism born of necessityHigh Output ManagementThe Engineer/Manager Pendulum

Mahdi Yusuf, Tech Lead for the Server Architecture Team at 1Password, shares his insights on navigating complex organizational dynamics. He discusses the balance between coding, project design, and mentoring, emphasizing the importance of empathy in tech leadership. Mahdi explores how to foster collaboration and address stakeholder needs while handling challenging conversations. He also touches on career growth, the necessity of psychological safety, and the importance of continuous learning in a tech environment.

Amy Unger from GitHub discusses her transition from academic programming to for-profit tech, the differences between tech lead and deep diver roles, trade-offs in engineering projects, and the importance of value and service ethic in developer tooling. She shares insights on managing rushed feature requests, navigating product failings, mentoring, balancing coding with non-coding work, and learning from peers in a male-dominated environment.

Today we welcome Brian Lawler, who is a Principal Engineer at Iterable! Brian has a load of experience with software architecture, having worked in the space for over 25 years, at a number of different companies and amassing a large amount of wisdom and expertise in the process. The rise of Iterable stands as a testament to the great ethos and community at the company and Brian generously shares a lot of insider info on how the teams and processes work. We get to talk about his specific role as it stands, his first period of employment at Iterable, and his thoughts on leadership style and problem-solving. Brian underlines the way they approach meetings and the feedback that follows before we hear how he divides his time as Principal Engineer. The conversation also covers how to keep a multidisciplinary organization in alignment, processes for flagging bugs, and the inextricable importance of mentorship in a company such as this. So for all this great stuff and much more from a seasoned pro, be sure to join us!LinksBrian Lawler on LinkedInIterableAccenture

On today’s episode of StaffEng, we speak with the formidable Matthew Bilotti who works as a Senior Staff Software Engineer at Twitter and has been at the company for 11 years. Matthew currently leads a team that plays a critical role in user safety. Matthew has also taken on a key role when it comes to mentoring junior members at Twitter. In our conversation, Matthew talks about why he’s spent so many years at Twitter, his deep passion for teaching, and why the work his team does is invisible until something goes wrong. Matthew also elaborates on what goes into hiring a new senior staff member and why, at Twitter, they make it possible to easily switch teams to help retain the employees after the company has spent so much time investing in them. For all this and much more, join us for a riveting discussion on leadership, mentorship, and how to balance idealism with realism in a mission-based company!LinksMatthew Bilotti on Twitter

As today’s guest, Natalia Tepluhina walks us through her professional history and describes her experiences at GitLab. After getting to know Natalia a little better, we talk about the challenges she has faced as a staff engineer. We then get into what makes GitLab a documentation-first company. Natalia goes on to explain the inherent traits of being a documentation-first company, like practicing open-sourced work and documenting every step of your knowledge journey. As our conversation with Natalia evolves, she describes her day-to-day responsibilities as a staff engineer and touches on the processes she implemented for her team to achieve success. From here, we take a deep dive into GitLab’s organizational structure and discover the differences between managers and technical leaders, finding out why Natalia prefers the former. Later in the show, we talk to Natalia about what goes into being a technical leader and hear more about her experiences collaborating with other divisions internally and as a GitLab consultant. To draw the episode to a close, we ask Natalia what it takes to surpass the staff level and for her to share her most influential resources. Find out what these are and much, much more by joining us today!LinksNatalia TepluhinaNatalia Tepluhina on TwitterGitLab

Today we are joined by the inspiring Jam Leomi, who is currently the Lead Security Engineer at Honeycomb. Jam has worked in tech for over ten years, holding positions in both operations and security, and we get to hear about some important milestones in their journey thus far. Jam gives us some great insight into how things work for engineers at Honeycomb, talking about expectations and priorities, and the way they currently split their time between different parts of the job. We also discuss OKRs, communication practices, and how Jam aligns personal goals and values with those of an organization. Listeners get to hear about measuring the success of security practices, strategies for effective rollout, and the task of navigating organizational politics. To finish off this great episode, Jam shares some of the things that have influenced them along the way, from books and blog posts to colleagues and mentors. Make sure to listen in with us on the StaffEng podcast today!LinksJam Leomi on TwitterHoneycombErica Joy on TwitterAccelerateThe Manager's PathLast Week in AWSCharity.WTF