Senior to Staff - Land Your Promotion As An Engineer
4.8
(19 ratings)
2 Days
·Cohort-based Course
Break past the senior level. Implement the frameworks and tactics to optimize your promotion to Staff Engineer.
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This course is popular
3 people enrolled last week.
Course overview
Don't leave your growth to chance
As the first terminal level in your career, senior engineers independently solve problems and deliver business value. Many engineers are stuck for years as senior engineers, often receiving feedback like this about their promotion:
- "You don't have enough scope"
- "You're not working strategically enough"
- "You need to drive problems with more technical complexity"
It's easy to hear this and feel stuck. How can I translate this into action?
The promotion beyond Senior Engineer (generally called Staff or Principal Engineer) is not about working faster or longer -- it's about behavior change that enables you to tackle more difficult problems.
Across my 4.5 years working at Meta, I experienced the frustration of failing and then finally achieving the Staff Eng (E6) promotion. This course distills years of my own career experience as an IC, transitioning to management, and talking to 500+ engineers directly to observe patterns that hold engineers back at this critical inflection point.
Course content (6 hours of live class, June 15/16):
- How to know where you stand on the path to promotion.
- How to get (or create) scope on a team with many talented engineers.
- How managers and directors perceive very senior IC roles.
- How to apply frameworks to identify impact that is commensurate with a Staff+ promotion.
- How to overcome failure modes of attempted Staff promotions.
This course is intended to have value for much longer than the 2 days of live sessions. Each student will receive a complementary Taro Premium membership ($400 value) to expand your network and stay connected to course members. (If you're already in Taro Premium, you'll get a discount in lieu of the 1 year of membership.)
Who is this course for
01
You're a senior engineer in Big Tech looking to get promoted, but struggling to find scope and influence. e.g. Google L5, Amazon SDE 3
02
You're an engineering manager or director and want to provide concrete guidance for your engineers to achieve career growth.
03
You're an engineer who wants to validate your career direction by learning how very senior engineers are evaluated at larger companies.
What you’ll get out of this course
Define the Staff Engineer role and what that means for you
Promotion comes down to two axes: impact and scope. We'll dive into the Talk & Observe framework to methodically understand the role of L6+ ICs and what behaviors they exhibit.
Chart a path to Staff Engineer
We'll identify the 6 archetypes of Staff Engineers: (1) Generalist (2) Specialist (3) Coding Machine (4) Tech Lead (5) Fixer (6) Product Hybrid.
Promotion requires both an understanding of your strengths as an engineer and the needs of your organization.
Deconstruct how managers and directors at top companies approve promotions
Grasp the mental model of the managers who sponsor (or block) Staff level promotions. We'll also dive into how your manager relationship should change as you become increasingly senior.
Gain confidence in the promotion process
Promotions are not random: judgments are made with people and data as inputs. We'll walk through how to understand what matters, and how to use that information to increase your promotion chances.
Join our engineering community
Your network is your most valuable career asset. All students receive complimentary access to Taro Premium. Through this course, you will connect with other high-caliber engineers and learn from their success and struggles.
This course includes
5 interactive live sessions
Lifetime access to course materials
12 in-depth lessons
Direct access to instructor
2 projects to apply learnings
Guided feedback & reflection
Private community of peers
Course certificate upon completion
Maven Satisfaction Guarantee
This course is backed by Maven’s guarantee. You can receive a full refund within 14 days after the course ends, provided you meet the completion criteria in our refund policy.
Senior to Staff - Land Your Promotion As An Engineer
Course syllabus
Week 1
Jun 15—Jun 16
Week dates are set to instructor's time zoneEvents
- Jun
15
Deconstructing The Staff Engineer Role And Mindset
Deconstructing The Staff Engineer Role And Mindset
Sat, Jun 15, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM UTC
- Jun
15
Bonus AMA + Office Hours with Rahul
Bonus AMA + Office Hours with Rahul
Sat, Jun 15, 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM UTC
- Jun
16
Types of Staff Engineers, Performance Reviews, and Communication
Types of Staff Engineers, Performance Reviews, and Communication
Sun, Jun 16, 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM UTC
- Jun
16
Bonus AMA + Office Hours with Rahul
Bonus AMA + Office Hours with Rahul
Sun, Jun 16, 7:30 PM - 8:00 PM UTC
Modules
- Beyond coding as a Staff EngineerBeyond coding as a Staff Engineer2 Lessons • 1 Project
- Learning through feedback and observationLearning through feedback and observation2 Lessons • 1 Project
- Staff Engineer Archetypes And Performance ReviewsStaff Engineer Archetypes And Performance Reviews3 Lessons
Post-Course
Events
- Jul
16
Optional: One Month Check-in
Optional: One Month Check-in
Tue, Jul 16, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM UTC
Bonus
Modules
- Full Access To Our On-Demand Promotion CourseFull Access To Our On-Demand Promotion Course1 Lesson
- Networking Opportunities with Live And Virtual EventsNetworking Opportunities with Live And Virtual Events3 Lessons
- Taro Premium AdmissionTaro Premium Admission1 Lesson
4.8
(19 ratings)
What students are saying
"I landed a promotion in just 7 months." — What students are saying
Matthew Ho
Qasim Wani
Rashmi Kishore
Hari Narayanan
Stanford student
Meet your instructor
Rahul Pandey
Founder at Taro, ex-Staff Eng/Manager at Meta
Rahul is obsessed with accelerating career growth for engineers. From 2017 - 2022, he was a Staff Engineer [E6] and Engineering Manager [M1] at Meta. Prior to that, he was a founding engineer at a startup which got acquired by Pinterest in 2015. He taught the mobile development course at Stanford for 2020 and 2021.
In 2022, he started joinTaro.com, a YC-backed company designed to increase the collective impact of software engineers around the world. Through his YouTube channel and the Taro community, Rahul has directly helped thousands of engineers.
Why this course?
Senior Engineer is a "terminal level" -- many engineers stay there (or are stuck there) for years. I struggled with the promotion to Staff Engineer and then saw the other side as a manager. This is the course I wish I had.
Join an upcoming cohort
Senior to Staff - Land Your Promotion As An Engineer
Cohort 3
$750 USD
Dates
Payment Deadline
Course schedule
6 hours over a weekend
Saturday and Sunday
10am - 1pm PT
We'll have lectures, discussions, and guest speakers for the 2 core days of the class. This time will be high-density and filled with active learning.
Bonus Office Hours
At the end of each session
After each live session concludes, Rahul will stay with the class for an additional 30 minutes to answer any and all questions.
Curated Case Studies
1 hour
Unlock recorded stories from other engineers who landed the promotion to Staff Engineer, with tactical advice from their journey. Accessible via your Taro membership.
Taro Premium Membership
Dedicate as much time as you want
All students will get a free year of Taro Premium membership. Use this to access masterclasses, vetted discussions with other engineers, local meetups, and job-searching workshops.
[Case Study] Building A Meta Internal Tool To Empower An Entire Org: Staff Promotion Story
Rahul worked at Meta (Facebook) from 2017 - 2022, getting promoted from Senior [E5] to Staff [E6] in the process.
A critical part of his promotion was the creation of a new internal tool to easily debug and fix tricky Android issues. The tool grew to 250+ engineers regularly using it.
This talk details how Rahul was able to identify and create the scope for the tool. The course will cover patterns and tools that you can apply to your own job.
Get this free resource
Learning is better with cohorts
Active hands-on learning
This course focuses on live workshops, AMAs with industry leaders who have been in your shoes, and applied exercises so you leave with new friends and a working system.
Insights when you need them
Can't make a class? They're all recorded and available. Need help cracking a problem? Hop into our exclusive Taro forum and get help from me and the broader community.
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you
A structured approach to career growth
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The frameworks focus on the mechanics of engineering career growth at the Staff level
Frequently Asked Questions
What will I get out of this course?
What happens if I can’t make a live session?
I work full-time, what is the expected time commitment?
What’s the refund policy?
Who is the course not for?
What happens after the course ends?
How can I meet other students in the course?
Join an upcoming cohort
Senior to Staff - Land Your Promotion As An Engineer
Cohort 3
$750 USD
Dates
Payment Deadline