Building trust as a software engineer

During a stint on Airbnb's infrastructure team, the author faced challenges in progressing from an L4 to an L5 engineer despite working tirelessly on a project to transition services to the Spinnaker platform. A performance review revealed that promotion to a senior level required not just hard work but the ability to plan, coordinate, and deliver complex projects reliably, alongside effective communication of any blockers. This realization led the author to found a startup, where a focus on dependability became crucial, especially in hiring and managing senior engineers capable of handling challenging projects without micromanagement. Trust, built through a consistent track record of meeting expectations, is emphasized as a key component in engineering, underscoring that reliability is more valuable than sporadic excellence, particularly in projects that are part of a larger dependency graph critical to a company's operations. The author advises engineers to focus on maintaining a streak of dependability as a foundation for career advancement and team success.