If I can modify that slightly: The staff engineer isn't accountable for people that have a rough patch or who are assholes (and the manager is). I've found as a

If I can modify that slightly: The staff engineer isn't accountable for people that have a rough patch or who are assholes (and the manager is). I've found as a staff engineer that I definitely have to care, adapt to the rough patch, and campaign/do politics to get the assholes out, but I'm not accountable for it. (I originally wrote this with "responsible" in place of "accountable" but that was fuzzier; surely as a staff engineer I'm responsible for more than my direct contributions even if I'm not directly accountable for them.)