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.