The Software Engineer's Guidebook: Navigating senior, tech lead, and staff engineer positions at tech companies and startups

“There are downsides to working at consultancies. The most common: Career development-wise, these companies usually don’t offer paths to above staff engineer-level, which is one step above senior engineer. The scope of work is limited to what the customer sets. Consultancies are generally hired for projects that a customer considers to be outside its core competency. Not much focus on good software engineering practices. Clients pay for short-term results, not for a developer to work on long-term things like reducing tech debt. It might be hard to switch to product-focused companies later. Companies that build products like Big Tech, startups, and scaleups tend to have very different cultures where maintainability is important, as is taking the initiative. Working at a consultancy for too long can make the switch to these places harder.”

“Finishing something before starting anything new is a helpful approach.”