How to steal from the most expensive engineer

Do You Care About Company Culture?#

I’m not sure whether company culture matters to you.
For me, it’s a deciding factor when I consider an offer.

People value different things. For some, culture isn’t a priority—and that’s fine. There’s no right or wrong here, only personal preference.

But here’s how I see it:
If a company’s stated values already feel off before I even join, staying long term could cost me more—mentally and physically—than whatever salary difference there is between offers.

That’s the kind of calculation I make before day one.

Compensation, Systems, and Observing What Matters#

What about after I join?

My observations shift from company to company, partly because I’m at different stages of life each time. Beyond teamwork and collaboration, I believe salary structures and performance systems reveal what a company truly values.

Looking through that lens helps me gather practical insight—enough to decide whether this is a place worth staying.

If salary data is fully transparent, what would you do with it?

• Ignore it?
• Compare your pay to peers at your level?
• Or… figure out who the highest-paid engineer in your discipline is?

Who’s the Highest-Paid Engineer?#

I looked for the top-paid engineer.
To my surprise, V, a Senior Staff Engineer, earned cash compensation on par with most C-suite execs.

It’s rare to see an IC paid like a manager. The fact that the company offered that level of pay meant V had earned its full trust.

I remember my first month, when V came up to me and asked: “What kind of engineer do you want to become?”

I said, “I’m still figuring that out, but I’d like to seriously pursue the IC path.”

Then he followed with: “Have you found your career model here?”

I answered confidently: “No, I haven’t.”

What I didn’t say: I’ve never relied on a single role model. I prefer borrowing traits from different people and piecing together my own version of the engineer I want to be.

So when I learned V was the most expensive engineer, I started studying him—not to flatter, but to understand what made him so valuable and whether there was anything I could learn (or even steal).

Studying Through Writing#

Why start with his project documentation?
Partly because we didn’t work together often, but also because I’m naturally sensitive to language and structure—analyzing writing felt natural.

After reading several of his research docs, I noticed:

• He never just took the requestor’s input at face value.
  He’d revisit the background, redefine the problem, and clarify the research goal.
• He explored problems from multiple angles, always presenting at least two viable options—each with trade-offs, risks, and feasibility analysis.
• His recommendations were rooted in context.

If I were his collaborator, I’d feel reassured working with someone that thorough.

What stood out even more was readability.
Even when his docs were long, they flowed. Compared to others I’d read, his clearly aimed not just to explain, but to drive understanding and enable action.

From Imitation to Foundation#

I tried to do the same.

Over the next few months, I made a conscious effort to:

• Investigate the root context behind every problem
• Break things down methodically
• Always bring at least two proposals for discussion
• Fill information gaps with documentation so no stakeholder felt lost

What began as imitation turned into my own standards for clarity, granularity, and communication. I built a way of using writing to guide decisions, align collaboration, and make my thinking visible.

This became the foundation for how I approached project research—and how I evaluated my own deliverables.

Assembling My Own Model#

I don’t think I ever “stole” everything from V.
But I did piece together a version of professional, mature communication that feels truly mine.

V might not represent everything I want to become, but his research discipline gave me a cornerstone. It helped me earn trust from peers and recognition from R, my manager.

I never imagined becoming a Staff Engineer—certainly not this quickly, and not here.
Looking back, though, it makes sense.