Going from a backend/infrastructure engineer at startup to staff engineer at a big company, Scared!
Hello everyone,
I have 5 YoE and I am currently working as a Backend / Infrastructure engineer at a small startup. I gave a few interviews and managed to land a staff engineer role
Is it comparable to staff roles at other big companies? I have so many questions and concerns.
What are the expectations from a staff engineer compared to a senior engineer? I have only worked in my individual capacity shipping features. Cross functional stuff at a staff level feels quite overwhelming to me. I read this post for reference https://mhlakhani.com/blog/2022/08/on-being-a-staff-engineer/ and some of it feels very overwhelming, I don't know if I'll be able to manage.
I feel very anxious I won't be able to match their expectations and be demoted. How do I manage this anxiety?
Other than this, This is all very anxiety inducing. My current company is small and there was not much structure to any thing. Want to take off for a day? change slack status, make sure you don't have any thing lined up for the day and disappear. In the new job, there is 20 days leave, 7 days medical leave. Every thing is so formal and my anxiety is going through the roof.