Work isn’t the only place where you can develop valuable leadership skills, Sophie Weston mentioned in the video The Principal Engineer’s Path from her QCon London talk. She suggested thinking about the things you do outside of your job where you can learn and practice useful leadership skills.
Becoming a principal engineer requires more than technical skill; it’s about influence, communication, and strategy. Success means enabling teams by shaping culture, Weston said. She suggested developing deep skills in multiple domains. Skills from life outside work, like sports, volunteering, or gaming, can add a valuable perspective and build leadership potential.
Weston mentioned that flexibility widens the pool of potential talent and enables keeping the best talent. She championed internal promotions and “squiggly careers,” allowing role shifts, including in and out of management, to support long-term growth toward senior roles in software development.
Weston suggested bringing your full skill set – your whole self – to work:
Don’t underestimate how skills that you learn in other parts of your life can help you in your career journey. We often talk about the importance of psychological safety and the need for people to be able to bring their whole selves to work and be themselves at work; this applies in a wider career context too.
Weston mentioned that she learned valuable leadership skills through being a parent. These skills are equally valuable as the ones you learn through actually doing your job. In some ways, they are more valuable because they represent more teeth on your “broken comb”:
Negotiation skills, time management, multitasking, and stakeholder management. Well-laid plans that explode when you least expect or want them to. Constantly practicing being adaptive and resilient. Influencing rather than controlling. These are all leadership skills.
Growing in tech isn’t just about what you learn; it’s about who you meet, Weston said. Getting involved in the wider tech community can expose you to new ideas, open doors to opportunities, and connect you with people who inspire and challenge you.
Weston suggested getting involved in the wider tech community through attending meetups and conferences. They provide learning opportunities and are great places to meet new people:
Networking is a really important tool in building your career. A broad and strong professional network can be a great source of career advice, job and other career opportunities, and even emotional support.
Becoming involved in a meetup or a conference, as a volunteer or as an organiser, can be rewarding. You can work with amazing people who you wouldn’t normally collaborate with and learn new skills that you wouldn’t necessarily get the chance to learn at work, she added. Organizing events can raise your visibility and supercharges your network.
Volunteering in tech communities often means stepping outside your comfort zone. If you’re ready for a challenge that will push you even further, public speaking might be the best option, Weston explained:
A lot of people think that public speaking is something that they will never have the ability or the confidence to do. To be quite blunt, I disagree. If you’d seen me the first time I got up to speak in public, you would never have predicted, or probably even believed, that one day I would be here speaking at QCon.
Weston mentioned that she knows very few people- including those who speak regularly at events like this- who aren’t naturally nervous about getting up and speaking in front of a roomful of people. For most of us, that’s normal, she said. Being good at public speaking is so much more than being naturally outgoing; it’s a skill that needs to be learned and it’s a skill that anyone can learn, she added.
Public speaking builds expertise and credibility. Sharing your knowledge helps both you and your audience grow, Weston said. It also strengthens communication skills. Learning to articulate ideas clearly makes you more persuasive in meetings, presentations, and leadership roles. And it boosts confidence and growth. Stepping out of your comfort zone is where real growth happens, Weston added.
To become a principal engineer, you need to broaden your skill set beyond merely technical expertise; for instance, by getting involved in the wider tech community, and public speaking.
Doing these things doesn’t just add up, they multiply, Weston argued- each step feeds into the next:
To use some systems thinking terminology, you create positive feedback loops. Learning new things leads to meetups, going to meetups leads to speaking, speaking leads to organizing, and before you know it, you’re at the very centre of the communities that once inspired you: Contributing, leading, and shaping them.
You should do these things because they excite you, because they challenge you, because they make you grow, Weston said. Any career benefits that come from this are a byproduct, a happy side-effect; they’re not the goal, she concluded.
