Reflections on defining and growing into a Senior Staff Engineer role at The Economist.

Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about where I want to grow next in my career. I’m currently a Staff Engineer at The Economist, and while the organisation doesn’t (yet) have a formal Senior Staff Engineer role, the shape of that next step has started to come into focus. Rather than wait for a title to be defined for me, I’ve been working to define what Senior Staff means in this context — and how I might grow into it.

This post is a reflection on that process: how I evaluated my current impact, aligned with the broader goals of our engineering organisation, and defined personal goals that push me toward broader, deeper influence.

What is a Senior Staff Engineer?

From internal drafts, industry definitions, and personal reflection, a Senior Staff Engineer is not just a Staff Engineer with more time or scope. The role is about driving org-wide technical strategy, amplifying the work of others, and influencing engineering culture at scale. Some of the key traits include:

  • Architectural and strategic leadership across systems and teams
  • Influence without authority – aligning work through relationships and trust
  • Mentorship and capability-building, especially for other Staff+ engineers
  • Navigating ambiguity to create clarity and momentum
  • Deep alignment with business and organisational goals

Reflecting on My Work

Looking at the past year, I saw evidence that I was already starting to operate in this way:

  • Led technical initiatives with high impact, like CP2 performance improvements and the Cloudfront rollout, which doubled performance.
  • Drove architectural clarity through shared interface design (e.g. Rich Topics, TWIB) and API cleanups.
  • Mentored and paired regularly, particularly promoting TDD and clean code.
  • Shaped cross-team alignment on Homepage and caching strategies.
  • Worked systemically, reducing tech debt, improving observability, and simplifying services.

But I also saw areas where I could grow more deliberately into a Senior Staff role — particularly in scaling influence, amplifying others, and linking deeply to strategy.

Aligning With Organisational Goals

The Economist’s engineering strategy for FY26 includes goals such as:

  • Building a high-performing engineering organisation
  • Increasing engineering productivity and impact
  • Scaling foundational systems globally
  • Embracing AI
  • Embedding security throughout the stack

And in the Content & Web pillar specifically:

  • Making CP2 the source of truth for all content
  • Locking down APIs and content access
  • Improving content discovery
  • Deploying services globally for performance
  • Reducing tech debt and streamlining architecture

To grow into Senior Staff, I want to make sure my personal goals directly support this strategic direction.

Personal Goals for Growth

Here are two goals I’ve set for myself over the coming quarters:

1. Lead Strategic Modernisation of Media Workflows in CP2

Unify and simplify audio, video, and image ingestion and retrieval in CP2 to enable globally available, secure, and consistent content management.

  • Facilitate cross-team discovery (CAAS, Enablement, B2B)
  • Propose and validate new architectural models
  • Deliver a reference implementation
  • Define reusable contracts and security patterns

2. Grow Engineering Culture Through TDD, Mentorship, and AI Tooling

Elevate engineering quality and developer efficiency by fostering TDD culture, mentoring future leaders, and championing the use of AI tools.

  • Launch an “Engineering Craft Circle” for pairing and clean code
  • Mentor 2–3 engineers with Staff potential
  • Pilot AI tooling (e.g. Copilot, Cody) and measure impact
  • Drive adoption of 1–2 shared packages to reduce duplication

These goals stretch me beyond my current scope, while still delivering immediate value to the organisation. They also model the behaviours I believe a Senior Staff Engineer should embody.

Final Thoughts

Not every organisation has clearly defined Staff+ roles — but that shouldn’t stop us from shaping them. By reflecting on your work, aligning with strategic goals, and choosing deliberate areas of growth, you can build the case (and the capability) for the next step.

If you’re on a similar path, I’d love to hear how you’re thinking about growth beyond Staff. What’s helped you? What are you working on? Drop me a message or share your own story.