Staff-level tends to happen if you are able to stay motivated to keep finding and fixing problems for a long enough time. You will naturally build expertise in

Staff-level tends to happen if you are able to stay motivated to keep finding and fixing problems for a long enough time. You will naturally build expertise in whatever field you're in as you iterate on that, until eventually you just know all the ins-and-outs of the systems in which you're working that you can "see around walls" when more junior people waltz in and try doing stupid sh*t. Your proactive criticism of their ideas and code will be seen as technical leadership -- well, because it kind of is. The only people I know who got stuck at Senior as they got older were the ones who let themselves get to the point where all they wanted to do was pull a paycheck until they could retire. They stopped giving a fsck when they saw stupid sh-t happening around them and just let it happen.