The Software Engineer's Guidebook

TAKEAWAYS

The terms “staff engineer,” “principal engineer,” and other staff+ engineer titles can mean surprisingly different things at different companies. There will be places where a principal engineer title is what is considered a senior engineer role elsewhere, and also companies where a staff engineer role has a blast radius of around 50-100 engineers – which is well above normal. So instead of just focusing on the title, figure out what the expectations are at your current workplace, and at businesses you want to join.

Staff+ engineers are frequently partners with EMs and PMs, and tend to work across several teams. It’s often an unspoken expectation that they uncover new problems worth solving, as well as fixing existing ones. ...