I generally don’t like “listicles”, especially ones that try to make you feel bad by suggesting that you “need” these skills as a senior engineer.
However, I do find this list valuable because it serves as a self-reflection tool.
Here are some areas I am pretty weak in:
- How to write a design doc, take feedback, and drive it to resolution, in a reasonable period of time
- How to convince management that they need to invest in a non-trivial technical project
- How to repeat yourself enough that people start to listen
Anything here resonate with y’all?
In my sad experience, you don’t but simply try to avoid getting caught in the blast radius of it failing. Someone approved/supported the project and someone approved/supported the sunk cost that already went into it. Those people have more power than you and they will not like looking bad due to you.