I strongly disagree. “Staff engineer” as a construct should be understood as an alternative to the previous dominant paradigm, which held that manager track is

I strongly disagree. “Staff engineer” as a construct should be understood as an alternative to the previous dominant paradigm, which held that manager track is the only progression track beyond some point (usually Senior or a “Senior II” level). This toxic concept was pretty commonplace through 2010, particularly outside Silicon Valley. Any system can be done wrong. But this system is, I believe, objectively better than the one preceding it, as having a dedicated IC track gives a way of growing your engineers who aren’t interested or talented in management. What you are complaining about sounds like an instance of poor management or poor team composition, not anything to do with the concept of Staff Engineer; if people are not doing their job then they are not being performance managed properly. Showing you can act at the level above is great but you still need to nail your core responsibilities too.