As a newly minted Staff Software Engineer at Doximity, I've been looking for ways to maximize my impact on the teams I support. My mandate as a Staff Software Engineer is to solve the kinds of problems that affect every team in my umbrella, not just the one team where I do my own IC work. That's a big change from my previous role as tech lead of a small team.
I’ve enjoyed following LeadDev’s content, from blog posts and videos to webinars, so attending a LeadDev conference has been on my bucket list for a while. I got my chance when I learned they were hosting their conference in New York City for StaffPlus engineers (engineering leaders who are in roles anywhere from Staff to Distinguished Engineer). I came away from the conference with a lot of ideas on how to improve my impact as an engineering leader and a plan to get more traction on a difficult project I’ve been leading. Here are some of the highlights from my experience at StaffPlus NY.
Lead Without Ego
Image: Katie Sylor-Miller during her talk “Mind the gap: Navigating the Staff+ Performance Cliff”
Katie Sylor-Miller’s talk “Mind the gap: Navigating the Staff+ Performance Cliff” was fantastic. She emphasized the need for egoless leadership and touched on the benefits you reap when you lead with humility. In particular, as StaffPlus engineers, we’re not meant to be writing and shipping all the code all the time. We’re meant to give those opportunities to other engineers on our teams and build them up. This wasn’t new advice to me, but it’s worth hearing again and again as I develop in my technical leadership position.
It was particularly useful as it connected with a technical project I’ve been working on that has grown in scope. I've been feeling an increasing burden that I can’t do all the coding and project management this project requires with the resources I have, on top of my other responsibilities. I realized during Katie’s talk that I can move my project forward by delegating more of the programming to my talented colleagues while I continue to manage the project (though I still hope to make some code contributions of my own).
Uplift and Promote Others
Krys Flores’ workshop on “Making Your Staff+ Impact Visible” turns the common advice of relentless self-promotion on its head. Only a small section of the talk was about building your brand and how you want to be perceived. The rest of the material focuses on how to achieve greater visibility by elevating those around you. That can take the form of praising your peers when they do great work, reaching out to new hires to welcome them into the fold, mentoring, and interviewing. We got to work through some hands-on examples in each of these categories, and I came away with the tools and drive to promote those around me more often.
Try Out Pre-Mortems
Most technologists are familiar with post-mortems, which happen after an incident has occurred. During a post-mortem you go through the timeline of the incident, reflect on what went wrong, and what could be done better next time to prevent the incident from occurring again. Pre-mortems, however, are meant to expose what aspects of a project could cause an incident and what can be done now to prevent it from occurring. This topic came up during a Table Talk activity hosted by Jonathan Jin: “How do you know where to focus your attention as a staff+ leader?”. Several engineers at the table discussed how they use pre-mortems during the development lifecycle to capture risky edge-cases before code is shipped. This was my first exposure to the idea of a pre-mortem, and I want to start incorporating it into my own workflow more.
Foster Collaborative Relationships
Image: Lorena Salamanca during her talk “How To Lead When You Just Don’t Know the Tech”
Lorena Salamanca’s talk “How To Lead When You Just Don’t Know the Tech” really drove home the need to develop soft skills as you climb the ranks of engineering leadership. When we’re in unfamiliar technical landscapes, our natural first instinct as engineers can be to try and learn the tech inside-out. However, this isn’t always the best use of time and resources for those in a leadership position. Instead, we should learn when to lean on the technical experts on our team who are already familiar with the new technology and foster good relationships with them.
One of the challenges of leading without authority can be winning hearts and minds to your cause. Lorena touched on this topic and advised that when you’re asking for help, part of that ask should include an explanation of why it’s important. She called it “The Because”. For example, “I need your help BECAUSE [xyz, etc.]”. Sharing why something matters intrinsically motivates others because they can measure the value of their contribution. This was another useful tidbit I took away from StaffPlus, to incorporate sharing the “Because” more often in the projects I’m leading.
Summary
The theme throughout LeadDev StaffPlus was very consistent: uplift your teammates, hone your soft skills, and build collaboration across teams and functions, all while delivering cutting-edge technology. I came away from the conference encouraged and armed with useful tips and techniques to improve my impact as an engineering leader. If you’re in a similar role, I highly recommend you attend StaffPlus. It’s one of the most valuable tech conferences I’ve ever attended.
Be sure to follow @doximity_tech if you'd like to be notified about new blog posts.
