The place I work at (size: couple of thousand employees) has had a 'staff' title for at least a decade, but my impression has always been that it was mostly jus

The place I work at (size: couple of thousand employees) has had a 'staff' title for at least a decade, but my impression has always been that it was mostly just the result of "we have enough levels that we want a title above 'senior' and below 'principal'". There's no strong boundary at the 'staff' level -- if you look at the grade criteria there's a fairly clear through line all the way up, with higher grades having more responsibility, wider view of the business, etc, and of course it gets steadily harder to get the promotion.