[pavlov]

I work at a FAANG with a monorepo (or nearly so). For anything that’s not blue-sky R&D, stalking around the codebase for working examples and patterns is a big part of the job.

I’ve felt that there is a potentially a role missing here: a kind of free-floating code librarian who is not attached to any particular team and could be called upon to perform basic research of existing patterns. Part of this role could be to maintain the kind of newbie-friendly documentation that tends to fall between the gaps of tool/infra/product teams. Maybe the job title could be “software informatician”.

[PopeDotNinja]

> a kind of free-floating code librarian who is not attached to any particular team and could be called upon to perform basic research of existing patterns

I'm on board with this idea, as long as I don't have to learn Dewey Decimal Classification.

[nostrademons]

This is usually called an "area tech lead" in FAANGs and "software architect" in more old-line software companies.

[pavlov]

I’m thinking of a more junior supporting role, separate from development and architectural design. The librarian doesn’t write the books.

[golergka]

I've never worked on FAANG scale monorepos, but in normal-sizer project, that would be one team leader.