I, too, had seen "staff" as being both above and below the more-common "senior", depending on the company. In the last couple years, though, I've been hearing it more and more exclusively as being between senior and principle (and being the first step that is unambiguously on the path towards principle instead of management). The term "staff+" is one I've heard from a few sources over the last year to refer to the purely-IC roles above senior/lead.
I didn't know what to attribute this standardization to, aside from the industry as a whole evolving. The original post points to some possible causes: a book named "Staff Engineer," several conferences, and a few communities based around it.
So to me, it makes sense to place it below senior. Staff is a neutral modifier which does not imply a set level of experience (both trainee and veteran are staff). Senior is a modifier which does imply experience. Junior implies a lack of experience. So, staff would logically fit between junior and senior.
Absolutely. It has no bearing on seniority, and because of that I'd assume a neutral level of seniority.
>So in a title it must mean something different than just "works for the company".
I mean, that's what this whole discussion is about. In the context of the English language, this is a rather new usage of the word, and I'm trying to illuminate how its use is changing. I totally accept and appreciate that language is constantly evolving — I'm not sticking up a fuss and calling this wrong — but I'm trying to answer the question of what the word implies.
As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, this largely seems to be initiated by the "Staff Engineer" book[0], and I take at least part of his marketing is creatively "misusing" a word, or redefining a word, in order to distinguish his brand.
The "it's a neutral word so it should be a neutral level" idea is clever but I don't think that's where this word usage comes from. I think it seems like it might have something in common with titles in media companies. What is a "staff writer"? Is that a fairly senior position? I dunno.
It depends how you want to grow, and where you want to spend most of your time. (Scope of influence).
People develop at different paces and focus on their career to varying degrees. This discrepancy can be possible for a variety of reasons:
- Different amounts of focus on career development
- More success/effectiveness in focusing on career development
- Luck of being in the right or wrong place at the right time
- Development of other skills that are unrelated to what makes someone a successful L5
I realize after I type this that this does not really address what you said - I don't mean to nitpick your use of the word "experience", and as you can tell I do agree with what you're saying that L5 can be career/terminal position.
(P.S. I know the creator of levels.fyi is here on HN, thanks for creating levels.fyi and for everything you do!)
- salary bands (+ stock awards & bonus. i.e "TC" bands)
- average seniority
- title change ( I (entry level) -> II -> Senior -> Principal -> ...)
- internal ladder descriptions (someone who worked at at least 2 FAANG companies can trivially figure out what maps to what, the titles & on-paper responsibilities are pretty standardized across most FAANG)
There are also a lot of factors on an individual case by case basis that go into leveling including: interview performance, tenure in level, and scope of work, which is why it won't always perfectly map 1:1 for all cases and hence why some levels are wider and overlap into more levels at another company. And beyond that, leveling is a living and breathing thing within any organization and may be in flux at any given point in time. At the end of the day, the site is meant to serve as a rough guide for where you may be placed. Also note that the leveling boxes actually have no bearing on compensation.
Hope this helps!