Being the Go-To Engineer on Your Team
As a Software Engineer in various teams, I’ve often found myself becoming the person my teammates turn to when things go wrong — whether it’s debugging a tricky issue, figuring out how a complex part of the code works, or just knowing where to look when things aren’t behaving as expected. Over the years, I’ve realized that becoming the “go-to” person isn’t about being the smartest person in the room — it’s about cultivating certain habits that help you build a deep understanding of the system and empower the team around you.
In this post, I want to share the key things that I believe helped me become that person, and how you can do the same.
1. Learn the Codebase (and the Product)
The first step to becoming a trusted engineer is knowing your codebase inside and out. But this doesn’t happen overnight — it takes deliberate effort:
- Play with the product. Turn feature flags on and off, see how they impact the product. Break things on purpose (hopefully not in Production though 😉). Observe the behavior of the codebase as you go.
- Map out the code. Learn and understand the major modules and components. Learn how they interact with each other.
- Step through the code. Don’t be afraid to fire up your debugger and step through the code line by line, especially in complex areas. This is one of the best ways to demystify tricky parts of the system and start building a mental model of how things work.
The more familiar you are with the code, the faster you’ll be at figuring out where issues originate, and the better you’ll be at helping others navigate it too.
2. Read (and Review) Pull Requests
One of the most underrated ways to level up your knowledge is to read every Pull Request (PR) — even if it’s just skimming through:
- Understand ongoing changes. This gives you a pulse on which parts of the codebase are evolving and which areas are more stable.
- Ask questions. If you don’t understand a PR, chances are others won’t either. Asking for clarification not only makes the codebase more understandable for everyone but also encourages better documentation and cleaner code.
- Spot patterns and smells. The more PRs you read, the better you’ll become at noticing patterns, common pitfalls, and areas of the code that seem to cause frequent issues.
Staying up to date with PRs makes you a more informed engineer and positions you as someone who understands both the history and the future of the codebase.
3. Become a “Support” Engineer
If you want to become indispensable, embrace support work — both external and internal:
- Handle client tickets. Dig into user-reported issues. It forces you to see the product from the user’s perspective and gives you exposure to the most fragile and frustrating parts of the system.
- Help your teammates. Whether someone is stuck on a bug, confused about system behavior, or raising a discussion in chat or meetings, step in and help. Not only do you unblock others, but you’ll probably learn something new in the process.
Becoming the person who helps both customers and colleagues is the fastest way to build trust and become someone the team relies on.
In Conclusion: Be Selfless, Become a Multiplier
The truth is, doing these things takes effort. It’s not always easy to balance this with your own daily work. But the payoff is great. By learning the codebase deeply, staying involved in the team’s day-to-day changes, and helping your teammates, you become more than just a productive engineer — you become a multiplier for the entire team.
And that’s what makes you the “go-to” engineer: not just solving your own tasks, but lifting the entire team with you.
Have any other tips on how to become the go-to engineer on your team? I’d love to hear them! Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below. 👇