Become a SME

When SDE I grow into SDE II and above, an important sign they’ve arrived is they start to be perceived by other team members as SME- Subject Matter Expert. SME owns a space in the team’s charter. When they take days off. We start to wonder: “Hmm, when will xxx come back? Maybe we should wait. We’d better hear his/her/their ideas before we proceed ...” In Maslow’s hierarchy of human’s needs, we go from the basic needs: the necessity of survival, a sense of safety, to psychological needs: love-belonging-acceptance. But to fulfill our psychological needs, we also long for esteem in social interactions: the respect of others, a sense of accomplishment, the feeling of mastery of some skills. That is the status of a SME can give us. But what does it take to become a SME, the owner of a space? I was doing a skip level check in yesterday with a new team member. He was excited about his recent delivery. So I probed a little deeper. “If you want to summarize what you have delivered in a few sentences, what would that be?” He gave me a long narrative about how the new tool can do this and that. “But who are the customer of your delivery? Who would be delighted in what way?” He paused a bit, thought harder, then realized his tool was to allow engineers to develop and test new features more conveniently. We spent the next 5 minutes working out the elevator pitch of “what” he has delivered. That is the first step of becoming a SME: you rise above the “how”, the messy details - all the technical jargons we feel so passionate about; you start to understand and articulate “what” is actually being delivered and “what” value it gives to your customers. But knowing “what” is still not enough. I asked the team member: “That sounds brilliant, you’ve improved the developer experience in that space. What is next?” “Oh, that is my manager’s problem. I am moving on to my next assignment.” That is not a good answer from a SME. Being a SME is a long term ownership. You own the space, not just a problem or a project of the space. We spent the next 15 minutes discussing other problems that might impact engineers’ productivity, and possible solutions. “But I don't own the team schedule or priority, that is my manager's job!” “Well...” We are all owners here. The manager may have the final say of “what to do next”. A SME owns the long term architecture of their space. We expect a SME to come up with ideas of “what” can be done to improve that space, and “why” we should do it “now”, not other things. You have to see the forest, not just the trees. Being a SME means you assert your authority, existence and power over a space in a team. You earn the respect from others by doing so. But with great power comes great responsibility. To become a SME, you have to know “how”, “what” and “why”. “Responsibility is the price of freedom”, Elbert Hubbard