Staff+ covers a spectrum of software engineering roles, from staff to distinguished engineers, all of which hold a unique technical leadership position within their teams.
No one – not even Tanya Reilly, author of The Staff Engineer’s Path – seems to be able to agree on where the “Staff+” terminology originated. While some speculate that it was inspired by the military ranking system, others believe it emerged from either Bell Labs or IBM decades ago, as engineering roles started to proliferate.
Despite this, Staff+ has grown as a category to encompass a whole range of engineering roles that has emerged in parallel to the management track, allowing individual contributors (ICs) to focus on technical execution, help their organizations to scale, establish wider technical context, and assist teams to work on the tasks that will contribute to the most pressing goals.
