Growing to “Senior Software Engineer” in FAANG
6 tips from a Senior Staff Engineer in FAANG on how to grow from junior to senior as a software engineer
Often the biggest blocker for an engineer to “move up” is that they don’t know what they don’t know. If we’re lucky, we can lean on managers and mentors to help us bridge these career-ish gaps.
Things like improving prioritization or delegation.
Or finding the “right” team. Or even things as simple as where do I even start?!.
Those discussions, though, can be scary. And to be fruitful you need to build relationships with the “right” people that can see those gaps. And we haven’t even gotten to fixing them yet!
There’s a step change in one’s career once you tap into a solid support network that can guide you through these things. I’ve always described it to my wife as the East Australian Current. Yes, like in Finding Nemo. Once you find the stream, the “EAC” greases the wheels and makes forward and upward mobility a lot easier.
The Tips
I recently sat down with an engineer I crossed paths with in the EAC for breakfast at a café in Palo Alto. I pushed and prodded at a lot of different aspects of his (undeniably) successful career. He…
