The Staff Engineer's Path

By Tanya Reilly

Tanya Reilly answers the question that many senior engineers face: what does a staff engineer actually do? Moving beyond the senior level means your impact is no longer measured by the code you write alone. This book provides a practical guide to the three pillars of staff-level work: big-picture thinking, project execution, and leveling up the engineers around you.

Drawing from her experience at Google and Squarespace, Tanya covers how to build technical vision, navigate ambiguity, drive cross-team projects, and have influence without authority. She is honest about the challenges too — the loneliness of the role, the difficulty of saying no, and the tension between writing code and doing the less visible work that keeps organizations moving forward.

Whether you are already at the staff level, aiming for it, or managing staff engineers, this book gives you a clear map of what the role looks like in practice.