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I don’t think I’d try to mix those things together. Same word, completely different things. In this article, a new grad who works on basic HR IT tasks for a fa
by kleinsch 4y ago
I don’t think I’d try to mix those things together. Same word, completely different things.
In this article, a new grad who works on basic HR IT tasks for a factory is doing staff work. That’s not staff level scope in the Will Larson sense.
There are plenty of “staff software engineers” in the Will Larson sense who create strategy for new product lines and launch them - “line” level work. Also plenty who work on DevX - “staff” level work.
- cushychicken 4y agoI think we'll have to agree to disagree. My takeaway from much of Larson's writing is that staff engineers can do the line work required to launch new product lines, but generally don't, because the impacts of their strategic work is much higher than that of line style coding. They direct and advise on technical strategy, but delegate execution to others, because having the 10k foot view is typically more valuable when deployed on strategic opportunities.
- triyambakam 4y agoI think you're missing what the above is saying, i.e. that the featured article uses staff in a different way than Larson and most discussions around "staff".
- ZephyrBlu 4y agoWill and this article use "staff" in a completely different sense. The author of the post even acknowledges this difference in his HN comment at the top of this post. Will uses "Staff Software Engineer" as the rank of Staff (I.e. one above Senior). This article uses "staff engineer" not as the rank, but as the type of engineer (Line vs staff).