How can I be an effective senior engineer on my new team?
I've recently joined a new company, and I got up-levelled to be a senior swe through the interview process. This would be my first senior engineering role at a large tech company (where tech is a profit center) relative to some of my other experiences.
- What mindset shifts do I need to have?
- How do I go about creating impact?
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Discussion
(6 comments)- 2
4 months agoMentor Coach for SWEs | Former Staff Software engineerFirst, congrats on the up-level through job search! Incredible work, esp. in this job market!
I'd say the biggest mindset shift is to think in terms of the $ impact of your work. Creating a culture of engineering excellence would be second.
If your work happens to move the needle on the company's revenue goals directly, you're already in luck! If you happen to be on an internal team, like Platform, no need to sweat. In that case, identifying the work that would be the most impactful to the teams you're supporting would win. Are there software or process inefficiencies you can remove or infra/ops cost you can save?
Engineering excellence matters because small inefficiencies snowball into great slowdowns that cost millions in vendor bills and eng org's salaries. Think in terms of code review turnaround times, testing inefficiencies, developer experience, CI/CD, deployment speed, observability, etc.
Also note that you don't need to wait to be technically excellent yourself to create a culture of engineering excellence within your team (and then your org). See a couple of my LinkedIn posts below.
I'd also look at the career ladder for Senior to make sure you understand how you'll be evaluated. Having a candid conversation with your manager about what they value and asking them to give you frequent feedback would be a great step toward building trust and showing your commitment to doing well.
Make sure you create a 30-60-90 day plan with your manager! I have done this time and again in my career, even when I was quite senior and it was very helpful at every stage. Besides technical work, the plan should also have names of people you should meet and the 3rd party systems and tools you should learn about. Google some templates, if you need to.
Taro is a great place to network with other senior engineers from your company to learn about their experiences and successes. You might also want to find another senior engineer buddy from a sister team (like your manager's peer's team) to orient you to the new role.
Taro also has a lot of content on being an effective senior engineer; Rahul and Alex would be able to link the most relevant threads. :)
How does this answer sound?
LinkedIn posts:
- 0
4 months agoSenior Software Engineer [OP]OtherThanks a lot for your input! Do you have any tips on 30-60-90 day planning?
- 04 months agoMentor Coach for SWEs | Former Staff Software engineer
Yes, I'd google some articles on its usefulness and look through a few templates until you find the one you like.
If your manager doesn't have experience doing this, then I'd say it's a great opportunity to collaborate with them and "teach" them. This will also give you a flavor of what it's like to work with them early on.
(Them seeing you as a collaborator is an important step toward partnering with your leadership regardless of the organizational "power" structures. Done well, it can position you as a strong collaborator and partner to the leaders down the line.)
The Manager's Path also has some great information on becoming an effective mentor and tech lead. I recommend reading the first few chapters of the book, but here's a summary I found.
Does this answer your questions?
- 1
4 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroCongrats on the uplevel! My core piece advice is to "Think like an owner". There are 100 different things that a senior engineer does that a mid-level engineer doesn't, but this is the core mindset shift that needs to be made:
- If there's a bug with your system, fix it instead of running away
- If you find messy code while doing feature work, refactor it
- If there's a problem with your project (even if it's outside of your domain or engineering altogether), be responsible for it
- If the team's engineering culture can improve, improve it (prolific code review is one of the best ways to do this)
- If the timeline is falling behind, own up to it and communicate transparently about it
Before all that happens though, you need to onboard so I recommend this course: [Course] The Complete Onboarding Guide For Software Engineers
After that, check this out: [Course] Grow From Mid-Level To Senior Engineer: L4 To L5
- 14 months agoSenior Software Engineer [OP]Other
Thanks! Would the growth course be valuable despite starting off at the "higher" level?
- 04 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
100%, especially as you got upleveled into the role. The course is structured in a way where if you do everything within it, you are well above the senior baseline (and like halfway to staff).
