Hi folks,

This is the weekly digest for my blog, Irrational Exuberance. Reach out with thoughts on Twitter at @lethain, or reply to this email.

Posts from this week:

- Staff Engineer.
- The curious case of the missing regretted attrition.

Staff Engineer.

Buy Staff Engineer on Gumroad and Amazon.

After a bit of a lead up, so deeply excited that the Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track book is done. As of today you can buy the digital version on Gumroad, as well as the digital and paperback versions on Amazon This project overlapped with a new job (at Calm), our first child (now eight months), and a global pandemic. In some ways, I'm surprised it got finished, but in another sense it was nourishment during a difficult year, and I'm so grateful the project has come together.

So many people played a hand in making this project happen. Tanya Reilly wrote the perfect foreword. Folks were willing to share their amazing stories of reaching and operating in Staff-plus roles: Michelle, Kasa, Keavy, Bert, Katie, Ritu, Rick, Nelson, Diana, Dan, Joy, Damian, Dmitry, and Stephen. Some of my favorite stories didn't make the book, and I'm grateful to each individual who shared their story on staffeng.com.

The lack of clarity and guidance for those in Staff-plus roles is a scourge that impacts many folks in their career, and I hope this book can be one small stepping-stone out of that pit.

For future updates on this or other books, consider signing up for my weekly summary of blog posts.

Podcasts

Staff Engineer has been on these podcasts so far: Software Engineering Daily, Career Chats.

Reviews

Some early reviews, and you can read more on Gumroad:

"Becoming a Staff engineer is both a promotion and a job change; many immensely talented engineers pursue the first and arrive unprepared for the latter. Will Larson's Staff Engineer is a wide ranging and thought provoking overview of the many dimensions of the role. As a software engineer at any level, this book will challenge you to become better and should be required reading if you're pursuing a Staff engineer role."

Amy Unger, Staff Engineer @ Github

"It is not easy to find many resources on the staff engineer role which is still massively misunderstood due to wildly varying definitions and assumptions. This book lays out some of the differing role definitions and then brings them to life with real case studies making it easy to map the archetypes to your own circumstances, passions and ambitions. This should be a go to resource for anyone thinking of pursuing the IC path or that has already moved into a senior IC role."

Nicky Wrightson, Principal Engineer @ Skyscanner and formerly Principal Engineer @ The Financial Times

"Will Larson's "An Elegant Puzzle" has earned its spot on my recommended reading list and is the manual I wish I had during my early years as an engineering manager. "Staff Engineer" is poised to join it and is the manual I need NOW to support my engineers in their continued growth. From the various staff engineer profiles to the analysis of staff engineer archetypes and the focus on working on things that matter "Staff Engineer" is a must-read for engineers and engineering leaders alike."

Kevin Stewart, VP Engineering @ Harvest

FAQ

There is a more comprehensive FAQ at staffeng.com/book, and I've pulled a few of the most common here for convenience.

Will I like this book?

I think you will, yes! Best bet is to read a few of the stories and guides to get a feel for it. I'd recommend Michelle Bu, Ras Kasa Williams, Staff archetypes, and Work on what matters.

Is there an audiobook coming? What about hardcover?

My plan is to create an audiobook, but I do not have a timeline established. I do not currently have a plan to print a hardcover.

Will this be sold at [some place it isn't sold in now]?

The digital version is available from both Gumroad and Amazon. The paperback is only available from Amazon, because Amazon because is the printer in addition to the marketplace.

There are no plans to make either version available in other venues at this time.

Are you creating a Slack or Discord for Staff engineer?

I wrote a bit about this in Why not create a StaffEng Slack or Discord?.

Is it DRM-free?

Yup, absolutely. All formats are DRM free, and the Kindle versin has lending enabled.

Where are profits going for this project?

All profits from this project will be donated to non-profit organizations that work to increase access for underrepresented communities in technology. They will be paid out quarterly for the first year, and annually afterwards.

Do you have a bunch of random links about Staff Engineer?

Oh yes, absolutely.

• staffeng.com
• Staff Engineer on Gumroad
• Staff Engineer on Amazon
• Staff Engineer on Goodreads
• Book overview page on staffeng.com
• Early Edition of Staff Engineer coming on Jan 31st

The curious case of the missing regretted attrition.

Over the past year, most of my writing time went into Staff Engineer, and I’ve accumulated a long backlog of topics that I didn’t find time to write about. Staring down that list of topics, I looked for something that inspired some energy and would be quick to write. My list of topics to write about is mostly just titles, occasionally with a supporting sentence to decode my forgotten intentions.

The first topic on that list that jumped out at me was recorded simply as, “The curious case of the missing regretted attrition.” Let’s talk about that.

Companies spend a lot of time worrying about their team. Is your team talented enough? Are they working hard enough? Are the “good ones” leaving? Are the “bad ones” sticking around instead of being managed out? At some point, every company starts tracking employee departures.

Soon afterward, they start labeling each departure as either regretted or non-regretted. A regretted departure is an employee that you’d hire back. A non-regretted departure is an employee that you’re glad to see “pursuing new opportunities.” All executives leave for either a new job or spending time with their family, but even for them, there’s a secret mark scribbled in a notebook asserting their regrettability.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this system, and in theory, it’s handy data. However, there’s one recurring issue that pops up at pretty much every company: far too many people are marked as non-regretted departures. There’s nothing particularly nefarious here. Humans are extremely good at rationalizing events with a comforting narrative, and there’s no narrative more comforting than, “We didn’t really want them, anyway.”

So, what should we do about this?

We can recognize this bias is hard to avoid for a start, even when you’re aware of it. Reserve judgment a bit when you hear someone labeled as non-regretted. More importantly, be a bit stricter with yourself about labeling folks non-regretted. It’s uncomfortable to admit a good member of your team has left, but there’s something valuable for you to learn just a step beyond that discomfort (and maybe, let’s be real, some shame and embarrassment).

More importantly, we should take this as a call to be more stringent in our performance review processes. Is there someone on your team who is getting a satisfactory evaluation but would be a non-regretted departure? I bet there is, and that’s a bad sign. Are these mixed signals because folks are avoiding conflict, or do different evaluators have genuinely mixed opinions? While many folks will argue about someone’s performance rating's fairness, few will waste their social capital arguing about a departure’s non-regretted rating. They’re already gone, so most reasonably ask, why bother? That’s even if they’re aware of the rating anyway, which they probably aren’t since they’re rarely communicated beyond a narrow group.

That's all for now! Hope to hear your thoughts on Twitter at @lethain!