Staff Engineer in Challenging Time

The recent changes in macroeconomics have impacted a lot of companies. For the online brokerage company I worked at, it has been impacted even more, both by the downward economic cycle and SEC's discussions on routing retail stock orders to auctions. As a staff engineer in the team, I am responsible for figuring out the technical directions. In the challenging time, the decision making principles will be very different. In this blog, I would like to document the principles that help me navigate the challenging time.

1. Be resilient to changes and plan for shorter term

In the good time, we usually have the luxury to plan long term, e.g 1~2 year plan, then execute accordingly. However, in the challenging time, we have to be resilient to changes, as the market conditions can change dramatically. Therefore, we should plan for shorter term, e.g. 3 months, and revisit the plan more frequently.

For long term investments like infrastructure, we could break down the long term goal into more granular action items, and pick those that aligns with new company goals / initiatives. I really like the word "ruthless prioritization", which means carefully evaluate the opportunity size of each project and keep those that can make direct impact. In the meantime, as a tech lead, we should make sure the short term goals still add up to the final long term vision.

2. Be transparent and show empathy

It's true that challenges come with growth opportunities. During the challenging time, I do see my company starts to greatly improve operating efficiency, reduce frictions in team collaborations, reprioritize product roadmap. However, we shouldn't just blindly sugarcoat the challenges and hope others are ok with it.

I will try to be transparent about my fear, my sense of uncertainty and share my plans with my teammates. If they are willing to fight, then we will fight together. As everyone is in different financial, visa, family situations, we should show empathy and work with each other to find out what are the best next steps.

3. Don't panic

I am not doing very well in this principle as I am the type of paranoid person. However, panic is not a very useful emotion in the difficult time. Panic usually comes from uncertainty, but no one can predict the future. What we can do is only to collect as much information as we can, and evaluate the probability of each situation. My favorite sentense is "Prepare for the worse, and hope for the best". In the difficult time, it's never a bad idea of having plan B for the worst situations.

Here are my principles to make decisions and help my team members in the difficult time. I will also revisit these principles from time to time, and update this blog to document what works and what doesn't.