Calms Will Larson on how to build a technical leadership career

Will Larson, former engineer at Yahoo, Digg, Uber and Stripe and now CTO of Calm, sits down with Intercom's Brian Scanlan to discuss the staff engineer career path. He points out that most senior engineers lack a clear roadmap for moving beyond individual contribution, and that companies often provide little guidance beyond vague manager advice. Larson draws on his own experience writing two books and interviewing dozens of staff engineers to surface the real challenges of the role.

The core advice centers on three practices: talk to existing staff engineers to learn how they got there, understand what the organization values most, and treat the promotion packet as a living document that you draft, share, and iterate on with peers and managers. He warns against chasing work that looks impressive but doesn't move the business forward, and stresses that high-impact work is defined by the company's strategic priorities, not personal ego.

Larson also breaks down staff engineering into four archetypes-architect, tech lead, solver, and right hand-showing how each serves different company needs. Recognizing which archetype matches your strengths helps you focus your growth and negotiate expectations. The conversation underscores a broader gap: technical leaders who stay on the engineering track often lack the career scaffolding that managers receive, leaving them to figure out evaluation criteria and impact on their own.

For listeners, the episode offers a pragmatic map for anyone aiming to become a staff engineer or support those who are, turning vague ambition into concrete steps backed by real-world examples from companies like Calm, Stripe, and beyond.