In my first post about Senior Engineers, I received feedback that the tasks senior engineers usually handle are not so straightforward. With Staff Engineers, I think it’s even worse because the responsibilities and tasks will be even more blurred.

I am not a Staff Engineer. But let’s at least imagine what to do to continue developing and not stop at Senior level.

So what to do to bring yourself closer to becoming a Staff Software Engineer:

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Most of your working time is spent enhancing the efficiency of other people’s work within teams and inter-team interactions.

💪 You see complex tasks that concern multiple teams, common pain points, and solve them. At the same time, you clearly understand the business impact - whether it’s dev velocity, cost optimization, or potential for additional revenue. It’s important to consider several solution scenarios:

• You “code” it
• Someone else “codes” it, and you set up and control the process, reporting on progress. You are the “system” that can be relied on, the “fitness trainer” who creates a pit of success around the initiative.

👩‍🎓 Teaching others. This includes mentoring, pair programming, helping with architecture and reviewing tech design docs, conducting workshops, and leading by example.

🧹 Managing large/complex refactorings, system updates, and helping others with this.

📜 Managing documentation. At this level, it’s important to understand what needs to be in place and in what form. This could be a public API for external developers or an internal system structure for internal use.

Do you have any acquaintances who are Staff Engineers? Bring them in, give them this list for review, and let them share their experiences.