Three Things Blocking Your Promotion to Staff/Principal Engineer (from an Amazon Principal Engineer)
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- Опубликовано: 29 мар 2021
- It took me 8 years to reach the principal/staff level. Let me save you some of the hard work and spare you some bad advice by sharing what’s holding you back and how you can get where you deserve to be, on your schedule.
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The views expressed in this video are my own. I do not speak for Amazon. 
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1. **Organizational Need:** Not every organization requires an additional principal engineer, and if the role is not necessary, promotion becomes challenging; individuals should assess whether they are in the right environment for advancement.
2. **Misleading Project Promises:** Software development managers may exaggerate the level of scope and impact on a team, leading individuals to believe they are working on principal-level projects, but promotions may not materialize if the demonstrated impact is limited to a specific project or team.
3. **Managerial Support:** The role of an individual's manager is crucial, and having a manager with experience promoting to principal or staff engineer, managing multiple teams, and being fully committed to the individual's promotion is essential; if these criteria are not met, seeking better managerial support or considering a team or company change is recommended.
This sounds right on. As a senior engineer, it actually helps confirm that principal is not really what I want. I'm hoping to break into a smaller company or freelancing to make a larger impact instead of influencing a larger number of teams within a company. Great content.
My favourite 2:30 - "This is you life. It's important for you don't wait for others to change. Go and get it."
I’ve not seen this content anywhere else. This kind of career advice helps a lot and is unique. Thanks !
Meta - your content is great and insightful
I fully dig how clear and direct your message is and am looking forward to watching your story evolve on your RUclips journey
I keep coming back to this video as I'm trying to figure out how to have an outsized impact in my org. Your tips are super valuable. Thank you!
This is excellent advice! I was a senior engineer in a non-CS discipline, always on the cusp of principal, and this advice is right on. Very sensible, especially regarding assessing a managers ability and willingness to help you achieve your goals.
I find the content especially useful since I've recently got a job at Amazon. I really like the way you communicate - very clear and honest
Would you mind making a video on what to pay attention to / what mistakes to avoid for people who've never been working in FAANG before and just got a job there.
Your information is gold. I feel like I'm listening to a colleague I'd admire. Please continue the good work you're putting on youtube. This material is fantastic.
Wow. Terrific introduction in the first couple minutes. This described my exact frustration with my previous job. You simply have no control over whether a company is going to lose employees or need to hire more (unless you run the company, in which case you don't need a promotion).
Thanks for the tips! These are eye opening. I have been stuck at senior for several years now.
Thanks Meta for passing the knowledge! Real gold stuff and keep the videos coming.
Cross team impact is the key bridge. It’s pretty rare to even have a principal level outside of the top 20 technology companies. In those cases, similar advice applies, but you might have to demonstrate competency beyond software architecture and people management. For example, coming up with the next product idea that only an experienced technical person would even think of as a solution to a major customer demographic’s problem.
thanks Meta. +1 to your vision on what this channel offers and your content indeed provide great values.
Thank you for your advice and honesty! I loved you are quite honest with your self and situation. 😊
Thank you. I needed this. Just accepted a new role thanks directly to your clear advice.
loving the channel, live office hours would be awesome
This is such good advice. Especially the “allotted spot” for the role. I’ve felt like many people get upset when the role isn’t bestowed upon them at a given time.
So basically Mr. Asiatic-Eyes spent the better part of 15 years building bloat ware for a monolithic organization staffed largely by hypocrites in all corners of that organization and today is seeking to capitalize on the naive and ignorant masquerading as a desperate attempt to maintain relevance by seeking still more praise from a wider audience.
Only the clueless with envy this clown.
Damn, I am a director at B4 consulting firm and what he says are exactly what is needed. And this is not even politics, this is about you placing yourself in an ecosystem that increases likelihood for external success. Someone who advocates for you but also has the influence to the decision maker
As always, great content. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. As a newly minted SDM at Amazon, it has been helpful for me when considering how I can grow my team and ensure they're doing the rights things to achieve their personal goals. From my experience, I wouldn't say that reporting to a frontline manager hurts your chances of reaching principal engineer; the team you're on and the scope it provides matter significantly more. That being said, the vast majority of frontline managers don't run teams with these kinds of opportunities.
I look forward to seeing more of your content!
Man, your content is sick! Really good! Keep doing it!
I'm an IC4 in FAANG. The content you're offering is very unique on RUclips. Keep it up! I can see this channel going far.
In regards to requests, I'd appreciate advice on how to develop my technical proficiency. I feel like it's easy to become complacent and not grow.
@@JulianSnow The easiest and most general way to do this is to hack yourself to be curious about how things work. It will take you far.
This is very honest and candid 👍🏻. Big respect
Thanks for sharing this! It's the same in the automobile industry that wants to reform btw., but with even less support for a proper leadership and setup like a software company.
As ex-Amazonian, I can confirm OP knows what he is talking about!
Excellent advice and the point by point presentation really helps !!! 👏
I'm at big tech trying to get to the senior+ level. This is simply great advice. Thank you.
Your content is gold. This is just the type of thing I was looking for.
Regarding your future videos, it would be great if you could prepare an interview series for senior/staff front-end engineer roles. There is so much content out there for backend systems design but hardly any for web front-end roles. Even the behavioural examples you gave here were regarding backend development! I am an experienced front-end engineer, and I have lead teams as well. I have been getting interview calls from FAANG and FAANG like companies for senior and staff roles, but I find it hard to describe my work in a compelling way that is required from a senior/staff engineer.
Take a look at my video on telling a good story. I think your goal should be to show backend folks the sort of complexity you deal with in a way even they could understand.
This is very helpful! Keep making these videos!
Interesting to read about lessons learnt about SDE2 promos to SDE3.
Thank you for this. It's a nice reality check.
Amazing advice. Thank you so much!!
Thank you for these great advice!
Thank you very much for your content! Keep up the good work.
Amazing video. You explain nuance very well. Looking forward to more content!
The info here is liquid gold. Thanks for upload.
Wow, this is incredible!! Thanks so much.
Thank you so much for your advice!
Really compelling advice! I know it applies to tech, but there is some life lesson stuff in there, too. Amazing!
Thanks for sharing your learnings.
This is a great channel. I'm a senior engineer that's been swimming against the current trying to get promoted for a long time, and some of the things you said in this and another video resonated. I did all the right work, but I didn't think of it as a process. But one thing I can control is my own skill -- if you think you could polish your skills to get promoted, what would you do? Then again you said your strength wasn't that different...
Thank you so much for your content! This is all really helpful!
In my experience, easiest way to get promotion is when you have a good relation with your skip level manager. At their level one can know what work to focus on to get outsized impact.
Great point. If you can get a sense of what strategic problems they are chewing on you can position the architecture to address their concerns.
How would one bring this topic to their skip manager without it seeming like you’re trying to bypass your direct manager?
@@6590651 its more of trying to see through the lens of skip level manager. We always assume what they look for. Direct conversation help us to understand what they really care and what actions by us impacts the business. For eg: A deployment of a simple reporting tool might be more impactful than reengineering current system to microservices using service mesh
Golden, thank you. Office hours please 🙏
Just got a Senior Software Engineer job at Apple. Just found your videos. Office hours would be dope.
This is best advice on youtube in this category
Right on... Keep them coming.
Very good advice. Management support is the more important of the topics 👍
One thing that would help is provide context on the scope of the multiple teams, as in the ownership of the different teams like example of services they would handle.
No BS. Perfect piece of advice
Would love to see a video of you giving advice to founders looking for really good engineers or technical cofounder.
Great content. Thanks! Keep them coming 😀
Excellent video and definitely sound advice.
Glad to see videos of this sort are far less viewed than those “learn to code” ones.
Great video! Would like to see you talk more deeply about SDE II to SDE III
Thank you for your content 🙏
well, this channel name is pretty much a jackpot
Thank you thank you, i'm a senior engineer finding my way to staff level. This content is diamond. The definition of staff engineer could vary by companies, but what you're telling is definitely what all FAANG and unicorns are expecting from a staff level candidate.
Great video as always!
To be fair to you, you should caveat this with "Amazon specific" (and makes it more impressive/difficult too) - Amazon Principal is probably more like a Senior Staff/Principal at other companies (Facebook, Google), especially since a Staff at one of those companies don't really need cross-org impact
Good point. It's really hard to describe the differences in level across companies.
I'm an Electronics engineer experienced with industrial controls engineering. I recently attained a controls Specialist engineering position at an Amazon facility managed by JLL.
Request: This exact content, but for the Engineering Manager role.
Wow, I loved this.
hey meta just want to thank u for your content
Totally off-topic, but I find your whisky collection awesome.
thank you Meta, absolutely killer content. Can you share your thoughts on "How to avoid getting PIPped?"
Watch my channel and do good work.
Thank you. ❤
Thank you!
In theory, you could come up with a project or activity which has the necessary impact for promotion.
But, in practice, it has to be initially in addition to your assigned work, then perhaps you could convince others that it's important to get it official.
Maybe your idea is so good, other engineers would volunteer to help, in addition to what's on their plate.
In any case, this is not your work speaking for itself, this is more about you selling an idea to others.
If you are not great at coming up with and selling good ideas, you still need luck or a lot of help.
He is like a non toxic tech genius leader. Is it possible to learn this power...?
This is the truth even harsh, I also took several years to figure out how this thing worked, making the right choice is much more important than just working hard 😂
Golden info
On point!!!
Is that Scotch Malt Whiskey Society bottles in the background? If so, good choice!
Good content! Only an eng2 but valuable stuff
Thanks for your videos
Really good pointers
Thanks!
amazing content!
Good advice. The problem with leaving to get a Principal role at a different company is that the interview process is often quite difficult as they usually expect you to have had those responsibilities before - they ask you to tell them about a time when you did influence multiple teams etc. But I guess you can get another Senior role in a company where they do have Principals, and then work your way up to the role - that can take a few more years though.
So basically Mr. Asiatic-Eyes spent the better part of 15 years building bloat ware for a monolithic organization staffed largely by hypocrites in all corners of that organization and today is seeking to capitalize on the naive and ignorant masquerading as a desperate attempt to maintain relevance by seeking still more praise from a wider audience.
Only the clueless with envy this clown.
This is gold
Please do the live office hours!
I like your channel, you're telling me what not to do, I Hates Amazon toxic working environment
Great content, thanks so much! A nit from engineer to engineer, the video could be even more awesome if you'd add some text on your side so the lists and points you are making are easier to follow.
Thanks for the feedback I will do so in the future.
Spot on
Thanks
good stuff !!!
Can you share how you control your stress and deadline? Thank you
Very good advise. The teleprompter is a bit distracting though, especially when watching. I find no issue when listening in the background
Do you have plans to make videos about blockers to promotion through lower levels of software engineering (junior through senior)?
Can you do one about work life balance as a senior engineer? How does it compare to the WLB of other senior engineer levels? I.E. Senior, Staff, Senior Staff, Principal
Good info
Please do office hours
Second question - What is the role of a Principal engg vs Senior developers like SDE3? I presume SDE3 at Amazon would report to a (Sr)SDM and Principal to a Director (or is it Sr SDM?). What are the typical goals of a Principal? What are your involvement in the execution of a project? Do you contribute with code?
It's a deep question, generally we report to directors and sometimes VPs. Sometimes we are contributing directly to projects, especially when they span many teams.
Come back and make more videos please :)
I have performance review coming up, could you do a video on what to discuss with your manager on OKRs, personal development, etc..
As for another request, I have 1:1 meeting with my manager daily, do you have any tips of how to make the most out of it, like building relationships and development.
Thanks heaps!
This is a big topic and I might do a video on it. Generally, you should bring things to your manager in 1:1s and not ask them what to do next. So something like "I'd like to get really good at writing design documents, what should I do next?" vs "What do you think I should work on?"
What's the possibility of a senior getting promoted to a principal at a different company, all things being equal?
How to look for "a better managerial support" ?
Commenting for the a l g o, and because I want to see more of this solid content.
S a m e. This is solid advice. Hope his channel booms.
Gotcha!!
Hey man. Can you do office hours, design meetings, etc. On YTube