r/softwareengineer

When people hear “staff engineer,” they often picture someone who writes more code, faster, on harder problems. A senior engineer with the dial turned up. In practice, the role is less about writing code yourself and more about making sure the right code gets written by the right people at the right time.

It’s also about ensuring that everyone involved actually agrees on what “right” means! Sometimes that’s system design. Sometimes that’s running an incident. Often, it’s herding cats.