L1
Honest Take — Before You Begin
Honest reflections on the destination this curriculum has been pointing toward
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Course · 6 lessons
~48 hr
Intermediate
Staff-Level Rails Engineering
Operate at the staff engineer level — leading technical direction, mentoring teams, managing legacy code, making architectural decisions, and driving technical strategy. This is the capstone that integrates everything.
reading · we frame, you read MIT or the canonical
taught · we author, no canonical fits
↺ spirals back to earlier lessons
Course locked
Complete System Design for Rails Engineers first.
This course unlocks once you've finished its prerequisite. Open prerequisite →
L2
Read: The Staff Engineer's Path (Reilly)
Approach: READ cover-to-cover
primary
StaffEng.com
locked
L3
Read: Working Effectively with Legacy Code (Feathers)
Approach: SELECTIVE: Ch 1-8 (core techniques), then specific chapters as needed
primary
StaffEng.com
locked
L4
Read: Software Engineering at Google (Winters et al.)
Approach: SELECTIVE: Ch 1-5 (culture), Ch 9-12 (testing at scale), Ch 17-18 (code review, documentation)
primary
StaffEng.com
locked
L5
Module Checklist
Work through each item before the checkpoint.
locked
L6
Checkpoint: Write three deliverables that staff engineers produce:
Write three deliverables that staff engineers produce:
locked
6 lessons. Read in order; spiral back when you need to. By the end you'll have used the core ideas twice — once on the abstract, once on something you'll meet at work next week.