[AYBABTME]

> I think there is still a bit of a perception that IC levels higher than Senior are about "Senior but with more interesting technical problems". This is largely false. In most organizations those roles are about empowering other people. You can see this if you read the stories Will Larson's new book, Staff Engineer: Leadership Beyond the Management Track.

I think that's _one_ way to do it, but it defeats the purpose of having an IC path. It's basically "ship code while being a lite-manager". There's space for more types of staff+ engineers than "manager-lite" versions of the role.

I'm in a semi rebellion with exactly the description you provide, because I find it's short-sighted. We need to allow these roles to be anywhere along the spectrum from manager-like to purely technical. The best description I found of these more senior roles is that they give you license to build the role you wish to have. Kind of like being a tenure professor.

Here's my own self-defined role definition: focus on exploration and research along with mentoring my peers into becoming the next version of themselves. On the other hand, I have no interest in managing the day to day process; it gets in the way of my primary goals.