Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track

Location: I came to the US from Switzerland to join Stripe. I came to Switzerland from Russia to join one of the best PhD programs in Computer Science. I came to Russia to join one of the best ex-USSR universities from Ukraine. In each of these relocations, I feel, I played geographical arbitrage: I was looking to escape the place where I was among the best to the place where I’d be average. In some of them, I think I wasn’t the prime candidate. By joining the people there and learning from them, I grew a lot. It’s hard for me to tell if US vs EU is a better location career-wise, but I can definitely tell from my experience that changing locations helped me grow a lot.

not to just build something that ships, but for it to roll out smoothly and continue to succeed and grow over time with as few regrettable choices as possible

ultimately sponsorship includes letting them take an approach that you wouldn’t