Excellent Engineers
An excellent engineer cares about the business, gets the job done, and confidently makes good decisions without guidance.
I recently read Sean Goedecke's "What can strong engineers do that weak engineers can't?."
Sean's post outlines the importance of solving significant and impactful problems.
However, I don't like the "Strong," "Regular," and "Weak" categorizations. Sean acknowledges that in his post as well.
Many "regular" engineers are excellent engineers. They excel at their work and make a significant business impact. The difference between "regular" and "strong" is whether an engineer is engaged strategically to be noticed by higher-ups (strong engineers) or to keep the integral parts of the business running efficiently (regular engineers).
There is another kind of engineer outside this spectrum. "Excellent engineers."
An excellent engineer cares about the business, gets the job done, and confidently makes good decisions without guidance.
An excellent engineer might go unnoticed because they do their job without fuss, mess, or questions. Do everything you can to keep excellent engineers.
An excellent engineer:
- Knows software design concepts that span across languages and frameworks.
- Knows design principles at an application level and a system design level.
- Understands how a computer in the cloud operates.
- They know their language of choice well enough to work independently and use it to learn other languages.
- Knows Postgres. This sounds weird--who doesn't know Postgres? However, many people use an ORM and cross their fingers without knowing what is happening.
- Thanks in systems and understands interconnected systems.
- Can articulate tradeoffs and make decisions based on those tradeoffs.
- Can articulate the outcomes of their work before they do it
- Stays focused on outcomes until the work is done or they realize these were the wrong outcomes.
- They are sometimes wrong but often correct.
- They learn and adapt quickly.
- They can discover problems, explain why they are problems, and propose solutions.
There are many ways to be an excellent engineer at all levels of the career ladder. Managers who notice, support, and promote excellent engineers build successful teams.
If you fit this category and think your work is going unnoticed, learn how to promote your successes. Take time to learn the language of the business and align your work with business priorities.
