The role that most companies these days call “Senior Software Engineer” is actually an intermediate-level role (e.g., 5 years of experience). Staff is arguably where the actual senior-level roles start. This corresponds with the transition from being told what to do to being told to figure out what needs to be done and make it happen.
Maybe that works for you, if you're in the right place getting paid the right amount, but we do ourselves a disservice when we allow this to occur.
My personal understanding was: junior: lots of tactical guidance
medium: less tactical, lots of strategic guidance
senior: no tactical, very vague strategic (normally coming from business partners).
Maybe that's just me, though.
>Maybe that's just me, though.
That's just you. I agree that's probably closer to how the terminology should work, but it doesn't. I'm unaware of any large company where senior engineers are getting direction directly from business partners.
You're lucky if "senior" engineers have 3 years of experience.
Senior: 53%
Staff: 35%
Senior Staff: 12%