• David Grizzanti's talk at InfoQ Dev Summit Boston: Software engineers can boost impact by helping other teams, focusing on business-driven work and building relationships. Growth comes from mentoring, setting norms, strategizing and designing career paths based on motivation.
• Getting unstuck: Make connections outside the team, like helping an open-source program office. Choose problems tied to business outcomes and communicate progress. Have a succession plan and elevate others.
• Staff+ work: It's ambiguous with slow feedback and influencing without authority. Find early wins to make impact visible and tie to goals.
• New job at a new company: Observe and engage, build context and relationships in the first 30-90 days. Approach with a beginner's mindset.
• Measuring success: For staff+ and principal engineers, success is measured by ripple effect on team, technical strategy and business outcomes. Look at project outcomes, organizational influence and business alignment.
• Starting a new job: Observe first, engage later. Approach with a beginner's mindset to avoid being clouded by past experiences.