The Principal/Staff engineer role has gained quite some traction as of 2023 and it is quite common for companies to invest in this role. Given the ambiguous nature of this role, many individuals still struggle to find their feet on how to be successful in this role. The variety of tasks in this role depends a lot on what is the area of scope of an individual. It has been observed that there are quite a lot of tasks which might not come out to be that technical. I am not talking about certain “glue like” tasks where a Principal/Staff engineer fills in the gaps in existing processes in place.

Like the previous year, 2021 went by in a blur thanks to the overly long lockdown in most of Europe. Locked within our four walls and relying on nothing but our wits and books to act as our companions, mentors, and teachers, it seemed a bit appropriate that this resulted for most of us in (re)building our reading habits. I personally managed to read close to 6–10 books a month during the first half of the year.

There are many things which keep us developers shrieking and hiding behind oak doors. Be it Bugs, Incidents, KPIs, Javascript, YAFF (Yet another Frontend Framework), Game of Thrones spoilers — the mention of these is enough to send cold chills down our spines. But nothing compares to the agony of going through tedious and lengthy procedures to crack a job interview.

I will try to generalise the process, give some tips on how to handle different areas (more focussed on the tech aspect of course). Before we begin, please note that in no way what I speak about in this article can be considered a good way to crack an interview or is applicable to all jobs in Germany. These are simply ramblings of a mere software developer, observing his ecosystem in the last 9 years, and I have not really conducted a thorough research on this.