Path to Senior Engineer Handbook is Jordan Cutler’s curated index of resources for the promotion gap that almost nobody writes about: the move from mid-level IC to Senior, Staff, and beyond. Where most engineering resources stop at “learn to code,” this one starts at “you can already code; here’s how to grow into a senior role.”
View Path to Senior Engineer Handbook on GitHub
- 17,962 stars
- 1,669 forks
- Markdown resource index
- No license (curated links)
Path to Senior Engineer Handbook: The category that’s missing elsewhere
This repo sits in the gap between “learn to code” material and “engineering leadership” books. The recommendation is for engineers already at L3-L4 (or equivalent) targeting L5-L7, with the understanding that the next promotion is mostly about scope, ambiguity, and influence, not syntax. Sections cover Newsletters, Books, Courses, Papers, YouTube, Podcasts, Communities, LinkedIn accounts, and platforms, each item hand-vetted as actually relevant to senior-plus growth.
If you’ve ever searched “how to become a senior engineer” and bounced off the noise, this is the filter.
Curated, not algorithmic
The lists are short. Where a search engine gives you 100 results ranked by SEO, this repo gives you 5-15 items per category ranked by relevance to the stated goal. That curation is the entire value. Jordan’s selection criteria are implicit but consistent: no fluff, no platforms shipping their own certification, no obvious upsells.
Pair it with a peer or mentor
The resources here are mostly asynchronous: newsletters, books, papers, podcasts. The two things they cannot give you are real-time feedback on your work and sponsorship inside your current company. Pair this repo with a peer group (the README links several communities) or a senior mentor at your job. The reading list is the input; the practice is what turns it into a promotion.
Smaller than the headline repos, on purpose
~18k stars is tiny next to freeCodeCamp’s 450k or Awesome’s 490k. That’s the point: the audience is narrower (engineers 3-7 years in, targeting senior+) and the curation is denser. Treat the star count as a relevance filter, not a quality signal.
Path to Senior Engineer Handbook is the curated index for the promotion gap most engineers don’t realize they’re stuck in. Skim each section once, mark three items per category, work them over a year.