Being Staff Plus - Ian Cooper - NDC Oslo 2024

Staff Plus roles are technical leadership positions beyond senior engineer that allow staying on an individual contributor track instead of moving into management

Key responsibilities include:

• Setting technical direction and architectural vision
• Advocating for engineering quality and sustainability
• Mentoring/teaching other engineers
• Solving complex technical problems across teams
• Building trust and influence without direct authority

Success requires:

• Moving beyond just coding to broader technical leadership
• Building relationships and political capital
• Demonstrating visible impact and value
• Working through influence rather than authority
• Maintaining technical skills while expanding leadership capability

Common pitfalls to avoid:

• Trying to be the best coder/dominate through technical prowess
• Becoming post-technical/losing touch with engineering
• Taking on too much “glue work” without visible impact
• Working solo instead of enabling others
• Failing to build trust and influence

Career progression involves:

• Moving from I-shaped (deep expertise) to T-shaped/X-shaped skills
• Building broad technical knowledge across multiple domains
• Developing leadership and organizational awareness
• Finding balance between hands-on work and strategic impact
• Measuring success through team/org outcomes vs individual output

Impact comes from:

• Solving systemic problems vs individual issues
• Teaching/mentoring vs doing
• Setting technical vision and direction
• Building trust across organizational boundaries
• Making engineering work simpler and more sustainable