The Pragmatic Engineer on YouTube · Open on YouTube
Staff-level impact and technical strategy · Expert · Lesson 92 of 98 · 59 min video, then about 4 hours of practice
Choosing what to work on
After this you can choose projects by their importance to the organisation rather than their interest to you, and explain that choice to your manager.
Why it matters
At staff level, choosing the right problem is most of the job. Work on what matters to the business, on things that will not happen without you, and on growing others. Avoid snacking (easy, visible, low-impact work) and preening (high-visibility, low-impact work). Shipping large projects also takes knowing how your company actually makes decisions and how to keep a project unblocked. Sean Goedecke's conversation is unusually concrete about this. Trap: the interesting technical problem nobody needs solved.
How to use this resource
A staff engineer on how large projects actually get shipped in big organisations.
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