I know this is off topic but if you ever have the inclination to write about it, I would be really interested in reading about any books, people, experiences, professional lessons learned, etc. that have been helpful to you on progressing along a non-spotlight technical focused engineering path.
I'm in a different domain (aerospace) but am trying to carve out a similar career path and am always looking for more to learn about just being a good engineer.
> if you ever have the inclination to write about it
I definitely plan on writing a lot more about this in the coming months :) After seeing Sean's own posts and the fact this post resonated, it feels like there are people out there who might be interested in this sort of thing :)
> books, people, experiences, professional lessons learned
Books not so much but one thing i've been very fortunate to have is very good mentors I can learn off. I've had the same manager from when I first joined Google and honestly I've learned so much just from watching him work and interact with people. Also a couple of senior directors/engineers in other teams as well who I always make a habit to catch up with.
I've done plenty of low level IC type mentoring: "make sure your MR has a good description" "use library XYZ instead of DIY" "you'll need to go to Design Review for this project" etc. But I'm curious about the other angles as well; on one hand I could do a better job of guiding juniors. On the other hand I could do a better job of recognizing a good vs junior manager, and potentially help them improve. Many times I've seen managers ask "how could I help you better?" to which I had no good answer. You're the manager, that's your job to figure out :-)
I'm in a different domain (aerospace) but am trying to carve out a similar career path and am always looking for more to learn about just being a good engineer.