Note on Advice for New Principal Tech ICs via Eugene Yan

A big part of the work is teaching the org to value something it doesn’t care about. Your audience will range from executives to working-level ICs. This is some of the hardest work you can do, and it fails often, but as someone who has an eye on the future and broader view, you should still do it. A mentor shared that for every 10 docs he pitched, probably three would get acted on, and he considered that a great outcome.

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There’s a category of work that just won’t happen without you. It’s usually at the intersection of what you really care about and what you’re exceptional at. It could be building a quick prototype and socializing a new customer experience with leadership, building bridges across orgs or other practitioners in industry, or crafting the three-year vision. Focus on this category of work. Also, it’ll get deeper and narrower over the span of your career.

FROM:

Eugene Yan

Advice for New Principal Tech ICs

Source

Good staff-plus guidance.

A corollary:

If you can’t explain why what you’re working on needs a principal, you might be working on the wrong thing.