Ambiguous Roles and Ambiguous Problems: Navigating Life as a Principal Engineer

The path to Principal Engineer at most companies often feels poorly defined, and that’s because it is. This is a problem. It’s also an opportunity. Inventing the Principal Engineer at your workplace is a collaborative effort including both management and your senior-most engineers, and we believe this invention is made by engineers who can solve the sorts of problems that often stump organizations entirely.

In this talk we’ll discuss how to work on the highly ambiguous problems that generally characterize these roles, how defining the role itself is a highly ambiguous problem, and our experience defining the Principal Engineer role at Carta.


Speaker

Will Larson

CTO @Carta, Author of "An Elegant Puzzle", "Staff Engineer", and "The Engineering Executive's Primer", Previously at @Calm, @Stripe, and @Uber

Will Larson is CTO at Carta, and has been a software engineering leader at Calm, Stripe, and Uber. He is the author of An Elegant Puzzle, Staff Engineer, and The Engineering Executive's Primer.

Read more
Find Will Larson at:

Speaker

Dan Fike

Deputy to the CTO @Carta, Previously @Google and @YaHoo, 5+ Years Implementing Strategies and Solutions in the Tech Industry

Dan Fike is a Principal Engineer and Deputy to the CTO at Carta, Inc. His experience ranges from game development to web app infrastructure, from Google to a 5-person tech startup, from programmer to architect, and from writing patents to conducting M&A diligence. He holds a BS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois

Read more
Find Dan Fike at:

From the same track

Session Psychology

Engineering Influence and Forgetting the Soft Skills

Wednesday Nov 20 / 11:45AM PST

Soft skills are overrated and dangerously oversold!

Speaker image - Charlotte de Jong Schouwenburg

Charlotte de Jong Schouwenburg

Co-founder of @Bravely, Business Psychologist, Executive Coach, Trainer, Speaker, 12+ Years Experience Enabling High Performing Teams and Leaders

Session IC leadership

What Keeps Me Up at Night – Existential Questions for IC Leaders

Wednesday Nov 20 / 02:45PM PST

In this talk, we explore the boogeymen of IC leaders. While critical incidents and uncharted technologies may be scary at the moment, they can also be exactly the challenge that motivates you.

Speaker image - Tina Wright

Tina Wright

Area Tech Lead @Grammarly, Interested in System Design and People-First Leadership; Previously @Coursera @TRI and @Google

Session Staff Plus Engineering

5 Steps to Building a Personal Brand for Elevating Your Influence

Wednesday Nov 20 / 10:35AM PST

In our connected world, you have a personal brand, whether you like it or not. And you have the power and responsibility to shape what it is. In this talk, you’ll learn how you can grow your personal brand to land better opportunities and have a greater impact.

Speaker image - Pablo Fredrikson

Pablo Fredrikson

Principal SRE @Harness & YouTuber

Session

From Junior to Staff and Beyond: Lessons Learned

Wednesday Nov 20 / 03:55PM PST

Getting to Principal can be a long and winding road – knowing how to navigate it efficiently can expedite career growth.

Speaker image - Bruno Rey

Bruno Rey

Staff Engineer @Eventbrite