What would be the most convenient, slightly unicorn, role in a series A startup where such complex structure isn't available nor healthy yet? (so it would cover the Staff/EM responsibilities while reporting to the CTO)
Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately I haven't experienced such setup yet so I can't give an accurate answer. But now that I have you attention, could you please elaborate why "such complex structure isn't available nor healthy yet"?
At least half of the startups that I worked with in the past 10 years, haven’t considered EM or Staff roles at 50 people or less. They instead opted for VPs, Head of’s, Principals and Seniors only, the argument being that it is too early for roles and responsibility granularity you expressed above.
Now I’m not saying that I advocate for such governance, but this was what the past practice taught me, and I’m open to learn from other’s experience.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I haven't worked at Startups (except my own 2-man startup) but I keep hearing Startups suffer from title inflation.
To me, each role should have a concrete definition. I have a series on career ladder anti-patterns that I'll publish during 2025 (hopefully) but here are some points in that series that try to clarify the role of Senior, Staff, and Principal engineer:
I've been drafting an article for Distinguished Engineer in that series and an article that glues all of them together elaborating the purpose and structure of a career ladder with some examples.
Personally, I haven't worked at a company in the past 10 years where those were valid separate roles. The titles exist but I'm not sure they're a full time job. More elaboration here: https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/breaking-role-to-titles
True, it depends on operating model. Thoughts in article you mentioned are really valid. I am often impressed by how companies hire full-time employees to do just one thing a month.
In my experience, MONEY is the problem! Many companies have the budget to burn that way. But in times of crisis they have to be smart and efficient. I've elaborated what happened in my own career here: https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/when-companies-feel-stressed
Uhhh, nice one, to my readings of the week
Really good insights, congrats!
What would be the most convenient, slightly unicorn, role in a series A startup where such complex structure isn't available nor healthy yet? (so it would cover the Staff/EM responsibilities while reporting to the CTO)
Hi Cosmin,
Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately I haven't experienced such setup yet so I can't give an accurate answer. But now that I have you attention, could you please elaborate why "such complex structure isn't available nor healthy yet"?
At least half of the startups that I worked with in the past 10 years, haven’t considered EM or Staff roles at 50 people or less. They instead opted for VPs, Head of’s, Principals and Seniors only, the argument being that it is too early for roles and responsibility granularity you expressed above.
Now I’m not saying that I advocate for such governance, but this was what the past practice taught me, and I’m open to learn from other’s experience.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I haven't worked at Startups (except my own 2-man startup) but I keep hearing Startups suffer from title inflation.
To me, each role should have a concrete definition. I have a series on career ladder anti-patterns that I'll publish during 2025 (hopefully) but here are some points in that series that try to clarify the role of Senior, Staff, and Principal engineer:
https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/introduction-to-the-role-of-staff
https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/senior-engineer-to-staff-engineer
https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/principal-engineer
I've been drafting an article for Distinguished Engineer in that series and an article that glues all of them together elaborating the purpose and structure of a career ladder with some examples.
Hi, nice one:) What about adding scrum master and delivery manager to this in next article?:)
Personally, I haven't worked at a company in the past 10 years where those were valid separate roles. The titles exist but I'm not sure they're a full time job. More elaboration here: https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/breaking-role-to-titles
True, it depends on operating model. Thoughts in article you mentioned are really valid. I am often impressed by how companies hire full-time employees to do just one thing a month.
In my experience, MONEY is the problem! Many companies have the budget to burn that way. But in times of crisis they have to be smart and efficient. I've elaborated what happened in my own career here: https://blog.alexewerlof.com/p/when-companies-feel-stressed
Yes!
Cool infographic. Nice colors