Software engineers can boost their impact by helping other teams, focusing on business-driven work, and building strong relationships, David Grizzanti mentioned at InfoQ Dev Summit Boston in his talk Your Roadmap to a Fulfilling Career: The Pillars of Staff+ Growth. Growth can come from mentoring, setting cultural norms, thinking strategically, and designing a career path based on what motivates you, he added.
Moving up the career ladder, software engineers sometimes feel stuck, Grizzanti said. They may have been in the same role for a long time, or feel that the projects they are working on do not have enough impact.
One solution Grizzanti mentioned to get unstuck is to make connections and provide help outside of your team:
When I was at Comcast, we had an open-source program office. They wanted to build a tool to measure what our open-source contributions looked like. I saw an opportunity to lend them some of my time and help them with something that was trivial to me but complicated for them, since at the time, they did not have any software engineers working on their team. This partnership created both value for the company and also for me as I gained new colleagues and supporters of my work across the organization.
To increase your impact, Grizzanti suggested choosing problems tied to business outcomes, and communicating those as they’re being built. If you see how it affects customers and really drives customer growth, that’s a good way of showing progress and focusing on valuable outcomes.
People get stuck and are not able to grow into the next position because they don’t have a succession plan, Grizzanti said. He suggested to not hold all the cards yourself, and to look to elevate other people with sponsorship, mentoring, and coaching.
Staff+ or principal work is very ambiguous, with slow feedback, and often invisible. There’s a lot of influencing without authority that goes into it, Grizzanti said. Success is self-directed; no one’s really telling you what to do next. Try to find early wins that make your impact visible and tie into organizational goals, Grizzanti suggested.
Shifting into a new job at a new company can be a struggle, Grizzanti said. As organizational dynamics vary significantly, he advised observing and then engaging, building context, and establishing relationships.
When you move up, strategic thinking is something that becomes more important. Grizzanti suggested picking problems tied to the company and/or goals, and framing technical decisions in business terms, as driving business outcomes is really important.
Regarding culture, Grizzanti suggested setting your own norms. He gave examples of how you review code, how you treat feedback, how you get by and build consensus, and respond to conflict. It sets the tone, not only for your peers, but also for other engineers who are working with you and may respect you, he mentioned.
Culture is a multiplier; a staff+ role is a leverage point where you can use your influence to amplify values like psychological safety and inclusion, Grizzanti mentioned. He advises to make sure you’re setting a good example in these areas and are approachable.
Grizzanti suggested people should design their own career road map, and try to find out what motivates them and what keeps them happy, he said. He advised talking to engineers, maybe a level above oneself, and at different companies, and at events like QCon, to see what their day-to-day is like.
InfoQ interviewed David Grizzanti about measuring success and starting new jobs.
InfoQ: How can staff+ or principal engineers measure their success?
David Grizzanti: For staff+ and principal engineers, success transcends traditional metrics like lines of code or tickets closed. At this level, impact is measured by the ripple effect of your work – how you elevate your team(s), shape technical strategy, and drive long-term business outcomes. Measuring this influence requires a blend of qualitative and quantitative approaches.
A comprehensive view of a staff+ or principal engineer’s success can be captured by looking at three key areas:
- Project and Technical Outcomes: This encompasses the direct results of the projects they are involved in, the quality of the technical solutions, and the overall health of the systems they influence.
- Organizational and Team Influence: This measures their impact on the people around them—mentoring other engineers, improving processes, and fostering a culture of technical excellence.
- Business and Strategic Alignment: This assesses their ability to connect technical decisions with business goals, drive innovation, and contribute to the company’s long-term vision.
While these areas are universal, the specific metrics and evidence of success will vary depending on the engineer’s primary role or archetype.
InfoQ: What are the things that you did when starting a new job, and how did that work out?
Grizzanti: Organizational dynamics vary significantly, so my approach has been to observe and then engage, building context, and establishing relationships over the first 30, 60, 90 days.
Additionally, I center my approach to learning around a beginner’s mindset. A beginner’s mindset refers to the idea of approaching a subject with an attitude of openness, eagerness, and a lack of preconceptions, just as a beginner would. It’s about being willing to see things with fresh eyes and not letting your past experiences and knowledge cloud your judgment.
It’s easy to slip into the role of expert if you’re starting a new job with 15 or 20+ years of experience in the industry. However, each company is unique and it’s valuable to take the time to get to know the unique people, culture, and technologies that make up a company before exerting too strong of an opinion.
