Glue work

Glue work is the connective tissue that makes projects succeed: unblocking others, writing the migration plan, aligning two teams, improving onboarding, shepherding a launch checklist, translating between PM and eng. It is real engineering leadership. It is also easy to undervalue in a promotion packet if it leaves no artifact.

Tanya Reilly's writing on this is the usual reference: glue is how work actually ships, and the person who "just makes it work" can stall while others collect shipped-feature bullets.

The big idea

Imagine a play where one person never has a named role but every scene depends on them fetching props. The show succeeds. The program does not list them. Engineering glue is that job unless you write it down.

The analogy breaks when the glue is the job — a staff engineer or TPM whose ladder counts coordination. Then invisibility is a process bug, not a personal one. Ask how your ladder weights it.

Walking through it

If you are always the person who makes it work:

• Name the work in writing. Status updates, launch docs and your brag document should include "aligned payments + risk on dual-write; unblocked launch by two weeks," not only "merged PR #1234."
• Time-box glue. Volunteer deliberately for a quarter; do not become the unpaid TPM by default.
• Rotate and teach. Turn your checklists into team docs so glue is not a single point of failure — or a single point of invisibility.
• Ask your manager how glue is weighted at your level. If the ladder only counts code commits, either change the narrative with evidence or rebalance your portfolio. See promotion.

SDE2 scope usually means leading collaboration inside a team and starting to pull other teams without a staff engineer doing it for you. Interviewers listen for stories where you influenced without authority and made a hard trade-off stick. Collect those stories as they happen — a paragraph in your notes after a sticky week is enough.

Common mistakes

• Invisible glue. You saved the launch and your packet lists PRs. Write the alignment and the weeks you unblocked.
• Default TPM. You volunteer forever. Time-box a quarter and rotate the checklists.
• Heroics instead of norms. One person holds the launch in their head. Decisions with owner and date scale better.

Check yourself

1. You unblocked a launch by aligning two teams. What sentence goes in the brag doc?

The alignment and the outcome: "aligned payments + risk on dual-write; unblocked launch by two weeks" — not only the PR number.

2. How do you keep glue from becoming a single point of failure?

Time-box it, write the checklists as team docs, and rotate who shepherds the next launch.

Key takeaways

• Glue is real work; it counts only if it leaves artifacts and outcomes.
• Time-box it and teach it so you are not the unpaid TPM.
• Align with how your ladder values coordination, then rebalance if it does not.

Further learning

Being Glue (Tanya Reilly)Slides and notes for the Being Glue talk.No Idea Blog

Tanya Reilly's LeadDev talk on how invisible connective work can stall a career:

Next: psychological safety.