Influence Without Authority
As a Senior Engineer, your impact is often measured by the code you ship. As a Staff Engineer, your impact is measured by the decisions you shape. The critical difference is that you are often shaping decisions for teams, projects, or organizations where you have no formal managerial authority.
You cannot order a team to adopt a new framework. You cannot command a Product Manager to prioritize technical debt. You must influence them.
[!IMPORTANT] Influence is not manipulation. Manipulation is about tricking people into doing what you want for your own benefit. Influence is about aligning people toward a shared goal for the collective benefit.
1. The Three Pillars of Influence
Before you can influence anyone, you need a foundation. Influence rests on three pillars:
- Competence: People must trust that you know what you’re talking about. This is your technical credibility.
- Trust: People must believe that you have their best interests at heart. This is your relational credibility.
- Empathy: You must understand what matters to the other person. This is your strategic insight.
If any of these are missing, your influence attempts will fail.
2. The Cohen-Bradford Model: Currencies of Influence
Allan Cohen and David Bradford developed a model suggesting that influence is an exchange. To get what you want, you must offer something of value in return. These “currencies” are rarely financial; they are social, professional, or emotional.
Common Currencies in Engineering
| Currency Type | Examples in Tech |
|---|---|
| Inspiration | Vision, excellence, moral correctness (“doing the right thing”). |
| Task | Resources, assistance, blocking unblocking, rapid response. |
| Position | Recognition, visibility, reputation, network access. |
| Relationship | Understanding, acceptance, personal support. |
| Personal | Gratitude, ownership, comfort. |
[!TIP] When you need to influence a Product Manager to prioritize a refactor, don’t talk about “clean code” (a currency they might not value). Talk about “shipping faster next quarter” (Task currency) or “reducing customer complaints” (Position currency).
3. Interactive: Influence Strategy Builder
Use this tool to simulate an influence scenario. Select a stakeholder and a goal to see a recommended strategy based on the currencies of influence.
Recommended Strategy
4. Stakeholder Mapping
Not all stakeholders are created equal. You have limited time and social capital, so you must prioritize who you influence. The classic tool for this is the Power vs. Interest Grid.
- High Power, High Interest (Manage Closely): These are your key players. You must engage them fully and make the greatest efforts to satisfy them. (e.g., The Tech Lead of the team you’re changing).
- High Power, Low Interest (Keep Satisfied): Put enough work in with these people to keep them satisfied, but not so much that they become bored with your message. (e.g., A VP who just wants to know “is it on track?”).
- Low Power, High Interest (Keep Informed): These people can be helpful with the details of your project. They often spot issues early. (e.g., A QA engineer or a junior dev).
- Low Power, Low Interest (Monitor): Don’t bore these people with excessive communication.
Visual Stakeholder Map
5. Case Study: The Refactor That No One Wanted
The Situation: The Payments team was drowning in tech debt. On-call was a nightmare. Features were taking 3x longer to ship.
The Mistake: The Staff Engineer, Alex, went to the Product Director and said, “The code is a mess. We need 3 months to rewrite the billing engine.” The Director said “No. We have Q4 targets to hit.”
The Pivot: Alex realized he was using the wrong currency. He looked at the data. The “messy code” was causing 15% of transactions to fail or time out during peak hours.
The Influence Strategy:
- Map Stakeholders: The Director (High Power/High Interest in Revenue) was the blocker.
- Identify Currency: The Director cared about Revenue and Reliability.
- Refine the Pitch: Alex returned with a graph. “We are losing $50k/month due to timeouts in the billing engine. I propose a 4-week reliability sprint to recover this revenue.”
The Result: The project was approved immediately. It wasn’t a “rewrite”; it was a “revenue recovery project.” Same work, different framing.
6. Building Social Capital
Think of influence like a bank account. Every time you help someone, deliver on a promise, or listen to a problem, you make a deposit. Every time you ask for a favor, push a controversial decision, or make a mistake, you make a withdrawal.
- Deposit: helping a peer debug a nasty issue.
- Deposit: publicly praising another team’s work.
- Withdrawal: asking a team to delay their roadmap for your migration.
- Overdraft: demanding changes without having built any trust first.
[!TIP] Start depositing early. Don’t wait until you need something to start building relationships. Spend your first 30 days as a Staff Engineer just listening and helping.
7. Summary
Influence is not magic; it’s a process.
- Understand who matters (Stakeholder Mapping).
- Understand what they value (Currencies).
- Build the relationship before you need it (Social Capital).
- Frame your request in their language, not yours.