77: Staff Engineer Archetypes & Glue Work with Jade Dickinson

SummaryBrittany and Erika close out the Overcommitted book club's read of Tanya Reilly's The Staff Engineer's Path with guest Jade Dickinson, a senior software engineer at Henry Schein One. They dig into glue work and how to make it visible for promotion, the book's staff engineer archetypes, the "why have we stopped" blockers chapter, and what it means to be a delegator on a staffed project. Jade also talks about her path into software after working in GIS mapping for Ebola response, and the group debates whether AI is shifting the scope senior engineers are expected to own. It closes with a staff engineer lightning round: Elm or React, glue work as underrated or a trap, and what a staff engineer is actually for.Links

• Jade's Blog: https://jadedickinson.com/
• Jade on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/jadedickinson.bsky.social
• Jade on Mastodon: https://ruby.social/@jadedickinson
• Helvetic Ruby Coneference 2026: https://helvetic-ruby.ch/talks/
• Jade's React to Elm Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdHa4_g3EM&list=PLhBlV3WSUrT3jCmqmYWcUEvmon_6K6WUy&index=18
• Staff Engineer’s Path: https://www.noidea.dog/staff
• Glue work: https://www.noidea.dog/glue
• Open and Async book: https://open-and-async.com/
• Staff Engineer Archetypes by Will Larson: https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/
• How I ship post from Sean Goedecke: https://www.seangoedecke.com/how-to-ship/

Hosts

• Overcommitted: https://overcommitted.dev
• Brittany Ellich: https://brittanyellich.com
• Erika Eggemeyer: https://github.com/eggyhead