> It is just that having personal goals that are supposed to positively impact business feels odd to me.

I hear you. It does seem hard and off. But also understand that aligning personal and business impact is one of the key factors in long-term personal and professional growth. I was able to do this when worked at Facebook... it does take time, it does take effort, it does take conversation with manager and it does take "leaning into discomfort", but it is worth it. 

To get started, one thing I suggest people do (and I have done it myself) is to take a goal (personal or professional), and ask a few times why you want to do it... if you do it, then what, then what... etc. And you do it for both personal and business goals and in the space of answers to "why questions", there is potential to find the commanality. 

If this is helpful, I am happy to share more. Just reach out. 

Founder @ Yogi Sharma Coaching, Ex-Facebook

Yogi Sharma

Shine has covered a bunch of good points. I explored this route when I was an engineer at Facebook, and ended up not going manager route. Here are a couple of extra "two cents". 

- If you are interested in manager role, start to "lead and manage" right away (without the title), be in terms of mentoring people, contributing to design discussions, volunteering to talk to other teams etc. Over time, these things get noticed, but even if they are not, you get some invaluable "management experience". 
- Talk to your manager to get a sense (explicit or implicit), and also notice other "indicators". How many reportee does your manager have, their scope, are they overwhelmed (e.g., do they have weekly meetings with their reportees). 

I don't know your situation in particular, but feel free to get in touch if you want to find out more. 

When transitioning to a new domain and language like C#, **focus on contributing early**. Get your development environment running (as Rahul already mentioned) and find small ways to add value right away. This shifts your mindset from just "ramping up" to becoming useful quickly.

Next, **clarify expectations** with your manager and peers. Have open conversations about what success looks like and don’t hesitate to **ask questions**. If you encounter unfamiliar terms or concepts, read up on them and seek help where needed. I have found too many people spend too much time struggling on things that others can help with in a few minutes. Of course, a bit of struggle is helpful, but balance struggle with asking others. In Facebook, we used to have a "rule" that if you have struggled to find answer yourself for 30 minutes and have not found, ask somebody (telling them what you have already tried). 

**Build relationships within the team**, especially with key contributors. Understand how you can help and learn from their expertise. When I have picked new language, it has been very helpful to discuss things about the language with someone who has mastery over the language (e.g., someone in the new team). They tend to focus not on the syntax, but on deeper reasons why this language is good (or not good) for certain situations. That angle helps to learn language (or any other skill) much better.

Happy to answer any follow ups if something is unclear. 

Founder @ Yogi Sharma Coaching

There are many skills that are needed for staff+ engineers, and I like what Lalit has already mentioned. 

One of the most difficult I have found to master (in my own experience and in the experience of people I have worked with) is handling conflicts and helping people align in one direction. 

The reason the **skill of conflict resolution and people alignment** is hard is not that there is anything fundamentally hard about it. But because during such discussion, our **emotional side get activated and our rational side become weak** (System 1 dominance in the language of the seminal book Thinking Fast and Slow). When that happens, we are literally unable to "think through". Our reptile brain takes over. 

There are many **formal and informal practices** that I adopt when working through this skill, but those are likely outside the scope of this question. Hit me up to discuss if you are finding it challenging. 

I agree with Rahul here. When I was working in Facebook (2011-2017), there was a lot of growth, but even with that, some projects in backend engineers "seemed to dry up", especially when people were busy fighting fires. Good engineers tended to dig into the fires and operational work and find the patters and root cause them. And define work for themselves. I have seen many promotions with such projects. 

Define your own work. 

Founder at Other

This is such an important topic: balancing current job with the new job search. In my career coaching work with engineers and PMs, this has come up at least tens of times. 

I have done it myself when I was leaving my FB job in 2017. I got 5 offers (including Uber, LinkedIn, Pinterest) over a period of 3-4 months. And then decided to take neither. :-) 

Also, I have done the same with many people I work with. 

The basic idea is a simple one: start small and adjust accordingly. 

Daily habits are the key here. Can you spend 15 minutes preparing for the job search every day? If no, can you spend 5 minutes? The point here is not to make a huge progress, but develop a routine that you can adjust. Once you start to see the benefit and emotional gains, the effectiveness in the time you spend tends to come. And one starts to "create time" too. 

The biggest block people run into is: it seems so simple, so it must not work... so they don't even try. 

This is a story I wrote on LinkedIn which you might find helpful: <https://www.linkedin.com/posts/yogi1_coaching-timescarcity-work-activity-6953571231191199744-lE_m?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop>

Happy to discuss further if it would help you. 