StaffEng

Conversations with software engineers who have progressed beyond the career level, into Staff levels and beyond. We discuss the areas of work that set Staff-plus level engineers apart from other individual contributors; things like setting technical direction, mentorship and sponsorship, providing engineering perspective to the org, etc.Hosted by David Noël-Romas (@davidnoelromas) and Alex Kessinger (@voidfiles).

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StaffEng

Mike McQuaid (GitHub)

April 06, 2021

Today we have a great guest to talk about his transition to, and current role as, a staff engineer: Mike McQuaid from GitHub! Mike is also a project leader at Homebrew, and brings a wealth of expertise and experience to the table, as well as the obvious added perspective that any engineer from the GitHub team would have. In our conversation, we get into a bit of Mike's journey up until now, the period of stepping up into the position of staff engineer, and how his time spent with open-source projects has influenced his other work. Mike gives us a good rundown of the different levels of leadership that exist at GitHub as well as painting a picture of the way he prefers to oversee engineers and projects. We talk about the healthiest ways to prioritize and tackle work and get into the sometimes murky waters of impact and value measurement. We ask Mike about what it is like working at GitHub where the people building things are also the ones using them, before discussing some thoughts on mentoring and sponsoring, OKRs, and the resources that have been most useful to Mike along the way. Tune in with us today to hear it all!

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