Concentric Circles of Competency

Note to the reader: This is a repost from LinkedIn

After (many) years at Google, I often hear “Wow, that’s a long time!” These days, I find myself naturally sharing knowledge gained over the years – e.g., recently giving a presentation on growth despite it no longer being my primary focus. What energizes me most is mentoring others. While everyone will face their own challenges, I hope sharing my experiences helps others avoid some of the pitfalls I encountered.

Reflecting back, here’s my 3-step framework for building concentric circles of competency, from self to team. It’s definitely “driving via the rear-view mirror” so you can take it with pinch of salt since I didn’t actively have this framing as I was doing these things, but these insights draw from my experience in software engineering and management:

Step 1: Know Thyself The foundation of any career journey starts with deep self-awareness. This isn’t just about skills and experience – it’s about understanding your motivations, strengths, and areas for growth.

• Understanding who you are now
• Understanding who you want to be
• Understanding how to get there

Understanding who you want to be is crucial. You don’t need perfect clarity about your future, but you do need to actively explore the question. Start by examining what energizes you, what problems you love solving, and what impact you want to have. Then begin embodying those aspirations – if you aim to be a technical leader, start thinking and acting like one by taking on more architectural decisions and mentoring others.

Step 2: Master Problem-Solving Success in tech isn’t just about technical skills – it’s about your approach to challenges. As your career progresses, the problems evolve from coding puzzles to complex system design and organizational challenges.

The key here? Take ownership. Whether you’re solving technical challenges as an SWE or driving strategic vision as an EM, position yourself as an active agent of change. If you’re not making a critical impact, find ways to get more involved. This way you can own both successes and failures – they’re your best teachers.

Step 3: Build Great Teams “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

No significant achievement in tech happens in isolation. The most rewarding part of my journey has been working with and helping build great teams. Creating a winning team requires:

• Building the right culture
• Hiring the right people
• Retaining the right people

Even as an IC, you’re central to this process – from choosing which team to join to shaping its culture.

Interested in diving deeper into these steps? Let me know and I’ll expand on them in future posts.