Category: leadership

How Principal Engineers Shape Documentation as a Product + Punch List Lagniappe

I’ve written plenty about documentation already (just recently here and here), so consider this a continuation of that thread. If you missed the earlier pieces, I’ll drop placeholders for them at the end. For now, let’s talk about a role that quietly makes or breaks the whole idea of “documentation as a real product” inside an engineering organization: the principal engineer.

People love to treat documentation like something you toss over the wall to a tech writer or leave in a Jira ticket until someone “has time.” A principal engineer doesn’t get to play that game. If anything, they’re the last person who can afford to pretend docs are an afterthought, because they’re the ones who end up carrying the blast radius when those docs fail. And they will fail if the principal engineer isn’t shaping them with the same rigor they apply to architecture, APIs, and operational design.

A principal engineer isn’t writing every page. They’re not your documentation vending machine. What they do is far more structural. They set the expectations for how documentation fits into the engineering lifecycle. They define the standard for what good looks like. They remove ambiguity. They make it impossible for other engineers to shrug and say, “I didn’t know that needed to be documented.” And they act as the connective tissue between engineering, product, and whoever else depends on what the system actually does versus what people assume it does.

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Keeping it Lean: Building the Bare Essentials for Project Management

When you’re running a project that needs to stay lean — and I mean lean like taking a cargo bike to grab groceries instead of a 2+ ton automobile that’s slower, more cumbersome, and way overkill for the job — the tools you choose and the processes you define matter as much as the work itself. It’s easy to go overboard, drowning in Gantt charts, sprint boards, and daily standups that spiral into mini-retrospectives. But what if the goal is simplicity, agility, and clarity?

Let’s break it down.

1. Define Your Central Hub

The first thing you need is a single source of truth. This doesn’t mean a bloated Jira instance with workflows for every imaginable scenario. For a lean project, a simple Kanban-style board can do wonders. Tools like Trello or GitHub Projects (especially if you’re already using GitHub for version control) offer clean, intuitive interfaces that keep everything in one place.

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The Role of a Principal Engineer: Strategic Vision and Tactical Execution

I just wrote a post about principal engineers and the purpose of the role. I wanted to elaborate a bit more about strategic influence and tactical implementation, thus I present this post. Cheers!

In any high-performing engineering team, the Principal Engineer role is uniquely positioned to influence both the day-to-day and the bigger picture. They wear the hats of both mentor and visionary, technical architect and pragmatist. This post is a deep dive into the core tenants I outlined before—because bringing each of these to life is where the real magic happens.

Technical Vision and Strategy That Scales

Strategic Influence: A Principal Engineer’s vision isn’t just about the project’s success—it’s about aligning technical goals with business outcomes, anticipating future needs, and charting a course for scalable growth. They take the long view, ensuring that each architectural decision today supports the needs of tomorrow. This means understanding where the company aims to be in five or ten years and building systems that can grow without creating excessive technical debt.

Tactical Implementation: To implement this vision tactically, a Principal Engineer uses an iterative approach. They document the architecture, outline performance benchmarks, and integrate architectural reviews into sprints. Tactical steps might include establishing microservices where modularity is beneficial, employing a well-planned API strategy, or implementing event-driven architectures that allow scalability. They routinely assess the current state, asking questions like, “If we double our users tomorrow, will the system keep up?” Each change made is documented to create a record for future engineers and ensure continuity.

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Elaborating on Multilevel Engineering Teams

Just wrote up the previous post and wanted to elaborate further on the different levels, examples for leadership to follow, and related ideas from my own learning. Thus, the point of this post, enjoy.

Junior Engineers

Example: Onboarding and Mentorship Programs for Junior Engineers

In one of my past roles, I spearheaded the onboarding process for junior engineers by introducing a structured mentorship program. Each new junior hire was paired with a senior engineer or a mid-level engineer who served as their mentor for the first three months. During this period, the junior engineers were assigned shadowing tasks during dev cycles. This included sitting in on design meetings, assisting in code reviews, and collaborating on smaller feature developments.

The shadowing model had a two-fold benefit: it accelerated the learning curve for the juniors, giving them real-world exposure to engineering best practices and the development process, while also offering senior engineers the opportunity to practice leadership skills by teaching and guiding these new team members.

In this mentorship framework, juniors were tasked with bug fixes or smaller features. For instance, a junior engineer might be responsible for writing the unit tests for a feature developed by their mentor. By working on tangible parts of the codebase and receiving feedback directly from senior engineers, junior engineers quickly gained confidence in their abilities, which also led to early wins for the team.

Why It Works:
This approach enhances team cohesion and knowledge-sharing while ensuring junior engineers are not thrown into the deep end without support. It also fosters growth in senior engineers by reinforcing the mentor’s knowledge and leadership through teaching.

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Building a High-Performing Engineering Team: Strategies for Recruiting, Retaining, and Growing Talent Across Junior, Mid-Level, Senior, and Principal Roles

Building a diverse and inclusive engineering team at multiple levels—junior, mid-level, senior, and principal—requires thoughtful leadership, precise recruiting, and a clear vision for growth and success. As demonstrated through my extensive experience in recruiting, making hiring decisions, and fostering an environment that retains talent, the importance of addressing the needs of engineers at all levels becomes paramount.

The Core Needs for Building a Multilevel Engineering Team

  1. Junior Engineers

Junior engineers are often eager to learn, adapt quickly, and bring fresh perspectives to the team. When hiring junior engineers, it is crucial to focus on their potential and learning acumen. Junior engineers benefit from structured mentorship programs, frequent feedback, and opportunities to work alongside mid-level and senior engineers on real-world projects. Their presence adds energy and creativity to the team, while providing senior team members a chance to mentor and teach, enhancing their leadership abilities.

Example:

I’ve often structured onboarding processes to include hands-on mentorship, assigning junior engineers to shadow senior engineers in early sprints. This approach not only accelerates their learning curve but also allows the senior team members to refine their teaching and leadership skills, ensuring a seamless transfer of knowledge.

  1. Mid-Level Engineers

Mid-level engineers form the backbone of the team, possessing enough experience to handle core tasks independently while also being able to guide junior developers. They often play a critical role in driving features from conception to delivery, balancing technical execution with business needs. In hiring mid-level engineers, the focus should be on their adaptability, ability to take ownership of projects, and technical versatility.

Example:

In several of my roles, I’ve emphasized the importance of giving mid-level engineers the autonomy to lead small projects. This has empowered them to make decisions, troubleshoot issues, and see how their contributions directly affect the success of the team and product delivery.

  1. Senior Engineers

Senior engineers bring deep technical expertise and are key to setting the technical direction of the team. They are often tasked with solving complex problems, making architectural decisions, and mentoring both mid-level and junior engineers. Senior engineers also play a role in recruitment, helping to attract and assess potential candidates for both technical and cultural fit.

Example:

In one of my previous roles, I created a mentorship loop where senior engineers were responsible for running technical interviews and mentoring junior and mid-level developers through code reviews and collaborative pair programming. This not only fostered a culture of growth but also helped build a stronger connection between different levels of the team.

  1. Principal Engineers

Principal engineers lead by example, focusing on long-term technical strategy and influencing the engineering culture at an organizational level. They often bridge the gap between leadership and the technical team, providing mentorship to senior engineers while aligning the technical vision with business goals. Principal engineers are vital to creating a sustainable development ecosystem, ensuring that the team grows while maintaining high standards of quality.

Example:

One key aspect of principal engineers’ growth is their ability to learn from other levels, especially junior and mid-level engineers. In my experience, I have encouraged principal engineers to spend time in code reviews with junior developers, which often leads to new insights about simplifying architectures or improving communication. This symbiotic relationship benefits both the junior developers, who get to learn from experienced engineers, and the principal engineers, who stay grounded in the day-to-day technical challenges.

The Synergy Between Levels and Why It Matters

A truly successful engineering team thrives when engineers across all levels contribute to each other’s growth. Junior engineers push more experienced team members to stay adaptable and up-to-date with emerging technologies. Mid-level engineers build strong ownership and leadership qualities through their guidance of juniors, while also learning from the technical depth and decision-making frameworks of senior and principal engineers. Senior and principal engineers, meanwhile, grow as leaders by mentoring and learning from the fresh perspectives of those earlier in their careers.

Leadership plays a critical role in maintaining this ecosystem, ensuring there are platforms for collaboration and knowledge sharing. A culture of mentorship and continuous improvement not only helps with the retention of talent but also ensures that the team remains innovative and adaptable.

Why Recruiting and Retaining Across Levels is Crucial

A well-rounded team with a balanced distribution of junior, mid-level, senior, and principal engineers is not only essential for delivering quality software but also for the overall success and sustainability of an organization. Engineering managers and leadership must be able to demonstrate their ability to attract, hire, and retain talent at every level. This involves creating an environment where engineers feel challenged, supported, and valued.

When each level is respected and invested in, retention rates improve, the onboarding process becomes smoother, and the team can scale more effectively. Additionally, diversity across experience levels allows for a more holistic approach to problem-solving, where insights from all stages of a career path are valued and contribute to innovative solutions.

My history has taught me time and again that building teams with a wide range of experience and skill level is the best way to go. Ensuring a culture of continuous learning and collaboration each level of an engineering team has unique contributions to make, and by fostering these relationships, the team as a whole becomes stronger, more innovative, and more successful in delivering top-notch software and services. The end product is a team, that is retained well past the average tenure, that can build, maintain, innovate around, and keep a product and service going for years and years.