The Staff Engineer's Path

I love asking for an “ELI5,” a term that comes from Reddit and means “Explain it like I’m five years old.” It’s a helpful shortcut to mean “Look, rather than guessing my level of understanding, just spell it out for me. I promise not to be offended if you tell me things I already know.” (The social contract here is that you can’t get offended if they start with the very basics of the topic.)