5 ms·

> Is there a concept of Staff-level titles? Not anywhere I ever worked or consulted at, and the article never seems to explain what she means by it.

Agingcoder 2y ago
Staff/principal/distinguished etc maybe ?
- zabzonk 2y ago
  Yet more meaningless titles.
kybernetikos 2y ago
In lots of places, staff engineer is the next level up from senior.
- zabzonk 2y ago
  OK, what is "senior"? And what is "next level up" in this context?
  - OJFord 2y ago
    Up from mid or junior. A promotion. Every profession has that, why do (some) software engineers have to act like it's strange.
    - zabzonk 2y ago
      How about: "We really like the work you have done on ABC. Now, XYZ needs some help. We'd like you to work with them, and we'll give you a P% raise." Happens all the time as a consultant/contractor - no need for half-assed job titles. Should work for non-consultants too.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        Most clients won't know exactly what you did at ABC, nor how much you contributed to it. If you were a junior it probably wasn't much. If you started as a senior and got promoted to a Staff by the end of your tenure you probably did a great job. That's all titles are. A convinent black box to judge for companies that don't want to outright share every detail of the process. And it works because XYZ also won't reveal their details. >Happens all the time as a consultant/contractor - no need for half-assed job titles. Should work for non-consultants too. The employed world is sadly different from being self employed. They don't need to deep probe someone they are hiring for a short contract as much as someone on the payroll. Or if you're being cynical, consultants are only hired for confirmation bias for something the company wants to do but wants to push liability away from. So they just need a fancy firm with C years of experience and success. The skills don't actually matter.
  - kybernetikos 2y ago
    Obviously such things do vary across organisations. Usually these job titles reflect levels of trust and impact across the organisation. In my experience, a senior will be the backbone of a team while a staff engineer will have impact across multiple teams. If you can't identify and communicate to the rest of the organisation about technical people who are providing a higher order of value, then it shouldn't be too much of a surprise if its hard to progress without going into management. I get that programmers tend to be slightly anarchic and distrustful of authority but these titles exist to support a technical career path.
jaggederest 2y ago
Staff software engineer is a title I see that means something that used to be "tech lead" (or is a promotion above "tech lead" in a single team, to handling multiple) in my opinion. It is also used (incorrectly, imo) as a simple promotion above senior software engineer. I think it's a different sort of job than being an individual contributor, more about growing people, growing the health of the engineering organization, technical liaison to other parts of the company, and promoting engineering productivity and quality. I also think that, if you're a staff software engineer and you don't write code, it's kind of bonkers. The Staff roles I've been in have been very hands on - writing examples, documentation, prototypes, libraries, refactoring; and pitching in on projects that are critical or behind schedule. I usually talk about it as being an 80-20 or 60-40 role, with often the larger part of your time being on technical work and collaboration, and the other 20 or 40 on soft skills and organizational work, but I could see people organizing it the other way.
- zabzonk 2y ago
  > it's a different sort of job than being an individual contributor Well, I've never understood the IC thing either - and it is so horribly impersonal - why not just call them "components", or indeed "integrated circuits"? And I think people should worry a lot less about job titles - for example, the whole "junior" and "senior" stuff is a bit worrying to me. Basically, I think all this crap is just a way of paying people differently, regardless of actual worth.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    Generally agree, I am reminded of a possibly apocryphal story about Thoughtworks, which apparently back in 1999 only had one title - if you wrote software, you were a programmer. One of the clients got really mad, they wanted principal technical architects "not just a programmer" and someone had to point out that one of the "just a programmers" working on their project was in fact Martin Fowler. I've always wanted to get a business card that said "Just A Programmer" on it.
    - zabzonk 2y ago
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
The article links to another one that has a breakdown in Tech Lead, Architect, Solver, and Right-Hand: https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/ https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/

Agingcoder 2y ago

Staff/principal/distinguished etc maybe ?

zabzonk 2y ago
Yet more meaningless titles.

kybernetikos 2y ago

In lots of places, staff engineer is the next level up from senior.

zabzonk 2y ago
OK, what is "senior"? And what is "next level up" in this context?
- OJFord 2y ago
  Up from mid or junior. A promotion. Every profession has that, why do (some) software engineers have to act like it's strange.
  - zabzonk 2y ago
    How about: "We really like the work you have done on ABC. Now, XYZ needs some help. We'd like you to work with them, and we'll give you a P% raise." Happens all the time as a consultant/contractor - no need for half-assed job titles. Should work for non-consultants too.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Most clients won't know exactly what you did at ABC, nor how much you contributed to it. If you were a junior it probably wasn't much. If you started as a senior and got promoted to a Staff by the end of your tenure you probably did a great job. That's all titles are. A convinent black box to judge for companies that don't want to outright share every detail of the process. And it works because XYZ also won't reveal their details. >Happens all the time as a consultant/contractor - no need for half-assed job titles. Should work for non-consultants too. The employed world is sadly different from being self employed. They don't need to deep probe someone they are hiring for a short contract as much as someone on the payroll. Or if you're being cynical, consultants are only hired for confirmation bias for something the company wants to do but wants to push liability away from. So they just need a fancy firm with C years of experience and success. The skills don't actually matter.
- kybernetikos 2y ago
  Obviously such things do vary across organisations. Usually these job titles reflect levels of trust and impact across the organisation. In my experience, a senior will be the backbone of a team while a staff engineer will have impact across multiple teams. If you can't identify and communicate to the rest of the organisation about technical people who are providing a higher order of value, then it shouldn't be too much of a surprise if its hard to progress without going into management. I get that programmers tend to be slightly anarchic and distrustful of authority but these titles exist to support a technical career path.

jaggederest 2y ago

Staff software engineer is a title I see that means something that used to be "tech lead" (or is a promotion above "tech lead" in a single team, to handling multiple) in my opinion. It is also used (incorrectly, imo) as a simple promotion above senior software engineer. I think it's a different sort of job than being an individual contributor, more about growing people, growing the health of the engineering organization, technical liaison to other parts of the company, and promoting engineering productivity and quality. I also think that, if you're a staff software engineer and you don't write code, it's kind of bonkers. The Staff roles I've been in have been very hands on - writing examples, documentation, prototypes, libraries, refactoring; and pitching in on projects that are critical or behind schedule. I usually talk about it as being an 80-20 or 60-40 role, with often the larger part of your time being on technical work and collaboration, and the other 20 or 40 on soft skills and organizational work, but I could see people organizing it the other way.

zabzonk 2y ago
> it's a different sort of job than being an individual contributor Well, I've never understood the IC thing either - and it is so horribly impersonal - why not just call them "components", or indeed "integrated circuits"? And I think people should worry a lot less about job titles - for example, the whole "junior" and "senior" stuff is a bit worrying to me. Basically, I think all this crap is just a way of paying people differently, regardless of actual worth.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  Generally agree, I am reminded of a possibly apocryphal story about Thoughtworks, which apparently back in 1999 only had one title - if you wrote software, you were a programmer. One of the clients got really mad, they wanted principal technical architects "not just a programmer" and someone had to point out that one of the "just a programmers" working on their project was in fact Martin Fowler. I've always wanted to get a business card that said "Just A Programmer" on it.
  - zabzonk 2y ago

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

The article links to another one that has a breakdown in Tech Lead, Architect, Solver, and Right-Hand: https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/ https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes/