Staff Engineer - Leadership beyond the management track

My Notes Link to heading

Found in: The most common archetype (an organization needs roughly 1 Tech lead for every 8 engineers).
Responsibilities: lead one (or a cluster of) team(s), guiding the approach and execution by scoping, coordinating and delegating projects. Define the team’s technical vision, and step in to build alignment within the team on complex issues.
Skills: carrying the team’s context; scoping and delegating complex tasks; coordinating and unblocking the team.
Interacts with: partner closely with a single (sometimes two or three) manager(s) and with product manager(s); maintain cross-team and cross-functional relationships.
Reports to: Engineering Manager.
Team’s impact grows as the Tech Lead’s coding blocks shrink.

Found in: relatively large companies with exceptionally complex or coupled codebases or that are struggling to repay the technical debt.
Responsibilities: success (direction, quality and approach) of a specific technical domain (for example, API design, frontend stack, storage strategy, cloud infrastructure, etc.) that must be complex and enduringly central to the company. Intimate understanding of the business’ needs, users’ goals, and relevant technical constraints. Identify and advocate for effective approaches within their area of focus, and do it with organizational authority that they’ve earned by demonstrating consistently good judgment. Remain deep in the codebaes or must not write code, depending on the company.
Skills: in-depth knowledge of technical constraints, user needs, and organization level leadership.
Interacts with: (?)
Reports to: (?)

Staff-engineer is not just a role. It’s the intersection of the role, your behaviors, your impact, and the organization’s recognition of all those things. (page 16)

(page 13-)

(pages 13, 15)

Guides the approach and execution of a particular team; partner closely with a single manager (sometime with two or three).
Some companies also have a Tech Lead Manager (relates with Why an Engineering Manager Should Not Review Code).
The most common archetype.
Lead one team or a cluster of teams in their approach and execution.
Comfortable scoping complex tasks, coordinating their team towards solving them, and unblocking them along the way.
Carry the team’s context and maintain many of the essential cross-team and cross-functional relationships necessary for the team’s success.
Close partner to the team’s product manager and the first person called when the roadmap needs to be shuffled.
Default to delegating most complex projects across the team to grow the teammates and in acknowledgment that the team’s impact grows as the Tech Lead’s coding blocks shrink.
They are the person defining the team’s technical vision, and stepping in to build alignment within the team on complex issues.
An organization needs roughly one Tech lead for every eight engineers.

(pages 13, 14, 16, 17)

Responsible for direction, quality and approach within a critical area.
Combine in-depth knowledge of technical constraints, user needs, and organization level leadership.
Responsible for the success of a specific technical domain within their company, for example API design, frontend stack, storage strategy, or cloud infrastructure. For a domain to merit an Architect, it must be both complex and enduringly central to the company’s success.
Influential architects dedicate their energy to maintaining an intimate understanding of the business’ needs, their users’ goals, and the relevant technical constraints. They use that insight to identify and advocate for effective approaches within their area of focus, and do it with organizational authority that they’ve earned by demonstrating consistently good judgment.
The role tends to evolve in relatively large companies (with exceptionally complex or coupled codebases or that are struggling to repay the technical debt)
Some companies push architects to remain deep in the codebaes, and others that they must not write code, both models work.

(page 14)

Digs deep into the arbitrarily complex problems and find an appropriate path forward.
Can focus on a given area for long periods o bounces between hotspots as guided by the leadership.

(page 14)

Extends an executive’s attention, borrowing their scope and authority to operate particularly complex organizations.