The Staff Engineer's Path

Be wary of choosing a project that already has a lot of senior people on it. Scope out who else is working on the problem and whether they seem likely to succeed at solving it. Some projects may even be slowed by an extra leader joining. 11 In general, if there are more people being the wise voice of reason than there are people actually typing code (or whatever your project’s equivalent is), don’t butt in. Try to choose a problem that actually needs you and that will benefit from your attention.