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What’s the Role of a Staff Software Engineer?
Based on books, observations, and podcasts
Throughout the past six months, much consideration has gone toward my career progression. Early in 2021, I was promoted to the Senior Software Engineer title. This was a warmly welcome milestone for me. With this under my belt — reaching “the career level” for software engineers — a new question sprung to mind: where do I want to go next on the ladder?
Whilst management is not ruled out, it’s also not my first preference. I love to be hands-on with the latest technology, dive into the problems facing customers and colleagues alike, and support other engineers in their work. If management isn’t for me, where should my ambitions lie next on the Individual Contributor (IC) path after becoming a Senior Software Engineer?
This question remained unanswered for a couple of months. The title “Principal Engineer” floated around for a while as a potential candidate, where instead of influencing a couple of teams, I may instead deliver technical guidance to a full engineering department. Whilst this sounds fantastic, it would be a huge leap to progress from influencing an individual “two pizza” size team to a group of 150+ engineers.
Later I stumbled upon the title “Staff Engineer”, which one of my colleagues recently promoted…
