You need to analyze the organizational landscape to know what your role as a staff engineer really is. If your manager has sole discretion on your compensation

You need to analyze the organizational landscape to know what your role as a staff engineer really is. If your manager has sole discretion on your compensation, then you need to be strongly aligned with her goals in order to succeed. If she sees her goals as solely delivery of her projects, then that's what you should work on. If you work in an organization (like I do) where your compensation is determined by a group of leaders, then you need to look at what the group wants from you and deliver on that. In my group, a big part of that for staff-level engineers is making sure that the overall organization is successful. Story for me this year: I noticed another team struggling. Their deliverable is really important to my boss 3 levels up, and I have the background to help them get unblocked and be successful. This team works on something completely disconnected from my manager's goals. I started working with them, and after a month or two told my manager I was working on it. She agreed that it was a good use of my time, and my involvement didn't interfere with other commitments we'd made. I've probably spent about 3 weeks in total on it. At review time, there was widespread agreement that it was the most important thing I've done for the year. To close - As a staff engineer, you'll see lots of gaps (if you don't see them, you're not a staff engineer). Most of them should be handed off to others. But some of the gaps are things you're uniquely suited to fill, even if it's not precisely in your area of responsibility. They're "not your job" but exactly the right thing for you to be doing. If your role is too narrowly defined, go negotiate with your manager (or better, your manager's manager) to broaden your role.