The Staff Engineer's Path

Tanya Reilly brings lots of clarity, actionable advice, and guidance to the Staff+ engineer's path in her book The Staff Engineer's Path. It is a well-rounded and practical book teaching you how to grow as an engineer and learn how to bring change in any organization. The content structure is compelling, engages the reader on the initial read, and allows them to reference the material later easily—a definite read.

Tanya Reilly's worldbuilding with the Locator, Topographical, Treasure, and Trail maps feels on-point and helps consolidate the big-picture thinking. Seeing a drawing of a staff engineer building the proverbial bridge to connect gaps between organizations long before a quarterly planning bridge is built sticks with you.

Undoubtedly, The Staff Engineer's Path by Tanya Reilly will get frequently compared to Will Larson's Staff Engineer. While Larson's book has good content, Tanya Reilly's book feels much higher caliber and more thoughtfully structured. Both books do not compete but rather complement each other, although if I had to pick one, I would go for The Staff Engineer's Path.

I highly recommend The Staff Engineer's Path to all software engineers and managers. Even if you're not aspiring to be a Staff+ engineer or are on the management track, the book will build appropriate expectations for what a Staff+ engineer can or should be.