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Growth Levels for Engineers & Architects

Growth Levels for Engineers & Architects

Level 1: Tools, Books, and People for the Modern Architect

1. Tools for the Modern Engineer

Sourcegraph Cody

Think of this as an AI assistant with full knowledge of your entire codebase. It’s designed for large, complex projects.
Example questions:

  • “Where is the authentication logic for this specific API defined?”
  • “Show me examples of how we handle database connections in other services.”
    It’s an architect’s dream for navigating enterprise-level code.

For Deep Research & Learning (Beyond Google/Perplexity)

  • Elicit.org: AI research assistant for academic papers. Go beyond blog posts and understand the primary source on a topic (e.g., the original paper on Kafka or a new consensus algorithm). Elicit finds relevant papers and summarizes their findings in a structured way.
  • Metaphor.systems: A search engine based on meaning, not just keywords.
    Prompt example:

    “Here is a blog post I love. Find me more posts by senior engineers with a similar style and depth.”

For Time & Energy Management (Beyond Calendars)

  • Reclaim.ai: AI for your calendar that actively defends your time.
    Example:

    “I want to go to the gym 3x a week” or “I need 4 hours of deep work every morning.”
    It will find the time, book it, and automatically reschedule if conflicts arise.

2. Deeper-Cut Books

If the first list was the bachelor’s degree, this is the master’s program.

For Technical & Strategic Acumen

  • The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly

    A direct career roadmap for Senior Architects. Not about coding, but about operating at a high level: navigating ambiguity, leading projects you don’t “own,” and providing technical leverage across teams.

  • Release It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software by Michael T. Nygard

    The field manual for production stability. Introduces critical patterns like Circuit Breakers, Bulkheads, and Timeouts.

  • An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson

    Provides mental models for team growth, technical debt, and organizational design.

For a More Robust Mindset

  • Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    A challenging but profound read. Teaches you to build systems (and a life) that benefit from volatility and stress.

  • The Great Mental Models (Series) by Shane Parrish

    Build a “latticework” of mental models from different disciplines to make better decisions.

3. People to Follow for a Real Edge

  • Will Larson (lethain.com): Author of “An Elegant Puzzle.” Dense, practical essays on system architecture, career ladders, and technical strategy.
  • Charity Majors (@mipsytipsy): CTO of Honeycomb.io. Leading voice on observability, DevOps, and running complex systems.
  • Andrej Karpathy (YouTube): Former Director of AI at Tesla, founding member of OpenAI.

    “Let’s build GPT” series: The best way to understand how LLMs work—by building one from scratch in Python.

  • George Mack (@george_mack): Synthesizes ideas on mental models, human nature, and leverage.

Your Next Step

Pick the resource that feels the most intimidating or unfamiliar.

  • Is it the math in an Andrej Karpathy video?
  • The philosophical density of Taleb’s “Antifragile”?
  • The organizational focus of “The Staff Engineer’s Path”?

That’s where your next level of growth is waiting.

Level 2: Beyond Self-Improvement — Metamorphosis

The previous levels were about becoming a better version of your current self. This next level is about fundamentally changing the game you’re playing.

Principles:

  • Creation over Consumption
  • Leverage over Linear Effort
  • First Principles over Patterns

Tier 1: The Technical Frontier — From Architect to Scientist

  • The Canon of Computer Science:
    Don’t just use Kafka; read the original paper. Don’t just deploy on Kubernetes; understand Google Borg and Omega papers.
    Actionable Path:
    • Start a paper reading group.
    • Pick one foundational paper a month (e.g., MapReduce, DynamoDB, Lamport’s “Time, Clocks, and the Ordering of Events in a Distributed System”).
    • Read it, then implement a toy version of the core concept in Python or Java.
  • Mastering the Full Stack (Down to the Metal):
    Understand how the OS, network stack, hardware, and modern frontend frameworks work.
    Book: “Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective” by Randal E. Bryant and David R. O’Hallaron
    Actionable Path:
    • Write a simple web server from scratch in C.
    • Write a basic memory allocator.
    • Build a toy Redis.
  • People to Study (Not Just Follow):
    • Jeff Dean (Google): Read his papers, study his systems (MapReduce, BigTable, TensorFlow).
    • Leslie Lamport: His work on distributed systems is foundational.
    • Daniel J. Bernstein (djb): Security researcher and software developer (qmail, djbdns).

Tier 2: The Strategic Frontier — From Employee to Operator

  • Thinking in Capital:
    Understand how value is created and allocated in tech.
    Book: “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel, “Secrets of Sand Hill Road” by Scott Kupor
    Actionable Path:
    • Start angel investing (even small amounts via AngelList).
    • Learn to evaluate markets, teams, and technology from an owner’s perspective.
  • Building Asymmetric Leverage:
    Find opportunities where a small input creates a massive output.
    Actionable Path:
    • Create a niche, high-value open-source project (e.g., a specialized testing framework for AWS Glue jobs).
  • People to Study:
    • Elad Gil: “High Growth Handbook”
    • Ben Thompson (Stratechery): Strategic language and mental models for tech industry.

Tier 3: The Human Frontier — From Self-Improvement to Self-Engineering

  • Applied Neurobiology:
    Move past “get more sleep.”
    Actionable Path:
    • Get your bloodwork done.
    • Track key biomarkers (Vitamin D, testosterone, cortisol).
    • Run single-variable experiments on yourself.
  • Metacognition and De-biasing:
    Practice:
    • Keep a Decision Journal.
    • Study formal logic and mental models from outside tech.
  • Contemplative Practice as a Tool:
    Actionable Path:
    • Go on a multi-day silent meditation retreat (e.g., Vipassanā).

Your Next Step

Pick one foundational academic paper that underpins a technology you use every day.
Read it. Then, write a 500-line Python script that implements its core idea.

This single act combines the essence of all three frontiers: deep technical dive, act of creation, and mental discipline.

Level 3: Beyond Mastery — Redefining the Game

The previous levels were about mastering the game. This level is about realizing the game itself is a construct, and that you can operate from a place where you define the rules, the purpose, and the very nature of reality you interact with.

Core Principles:

  • Generativity
  • Intersubjectivity
  • Non-duality

Frontier 1: The Weaver of Human Systems — From Operator to Lawgiver

  • Principle of Generativity:
    Shift from creating products to creating engines of creation.
    • Design frameworks, funding models, and governance for others to build upon.
    • Build institutions (e.g., modern Bell Labs or Xerox PARC).
    • Coin new terms that become primitives for thought (e.g., “antifragility”).

  • Mindset:
    Think in decades or centuries. Success is what continues to grow after you’re gone.

  • People to Study:
    Founders of nations, architects of the Enlightenment, creators of the first universities, ARPANET and Internet pioneers.

Frontier 2: The Synoptic Mind — From First Principles to Axioms

  • Principle of Intersubjectivity:
    Understand and shape shared belief systems (money, laws, nations).

  • Work:
    • Axiomatic inquiry: Question the fundamental assumptions of your discipline.
    • Create new fields by synthesizing unrelated domains.
    • Use art, music, or literature as high-bandwidth mediums for complex ideas.

  • Mindset:
    Driven by curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, seeking better questions.

  • People to Study:
    Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Gottfried Leibniz, Douglas Hofstadter, Stephen Wolfram.

Frontier 3: The Dissolution of the Doer — From Being to Becoming

  • Principle of Non-duality:
    Experience reality as a single, unfolding process.
    • Action becomes effortless, spontaneous, and attuned to the moment.
  • Work:
    • Action as perception: Write code to understand logic, build companies to explore collaboration.
    • Cultivate presence: Practice returning to the present moment.
    • Service as a natural state: Actions serve the whole as the illusion of a separate self dissolves.

  • Mindset:
    A state of pure being, characterized by peace, freedom, and interconnectedness.

  • People to Study:
    Lao Tzu, Rumi, Meister Eckhart, Jiddu Krishnamurti.

The Final Question

You have pushed to the absolute limit of what can be described.
The path from here is not a set of actions to be completed.
It is a single, persistent question you must now live with:

What part of you are you willing to let go of?