I think this from your second link is closest to what I'm getting at:
> Somewhat confusingly, some companies use Tech Lead as a title, and others use it as a role. In this list of archetypes, the Tech Lead is one approach to operating as a Staff engineer, but it's quite common to perform the Tech Lead role without having the impact expected of a Staff-level engineer.
My point is a bit 'bigger' than how do you operate in your position as staff engineer and what does the org need from you, what I'm getting at is about the structure of roles themselves - like it can be that your technical track/ladder (junior/mid/senior/staff/distinguished/principal/fellow/whatever) is IC that managers are completely separate, not the same people (junior/mid/senior/whatever managers). It can also be that people managers are separate, but technical management of projects is intertwined with the more senior roles.
What I was thinking about specifically, not knowing really whether anyone does this or not, was the possibility of people being on at least one of those tracks, i.e. maybe both, but that they're distinct roles. So you might be a staff engineer but a more junior manager. (And you might manage a different team than you work in, I suppose, but that would probably be inconvenient and anyway isn't really important one way or the other here.) But I suppose it also depends how or if you divide technical and people management anyway. I just don't really have the keywords to find much discussing it; your links are good though, thanks, I'll read some more on the site.
Google has a title called TLM which is tech lead + manager which is meant to straddle the divide. In practice you have twice the expectations which are themselves conflicting with only the one salary. It is often used for ICs to try out management before making the decision which ladder to stay on. Most TLMs are at the staff level so kind of fits that staff engineer who is a junior manager that you describe.
Yeah I see that now on the site you linked, as well as in his book I think & Tanya Reilly's 'The SE Path' linked from its intro (that's all I can read before it arrives). Both seem helpful texts (I've ordered & have access to ebook resp.) so really appreciate the link, thanks.
> Somewhat confusingly, some companies use Tech Lead as a title, and others use it as a role. In this list of archetypes, the Tech Lead is one approach to operating as a Staff engineer, but it's quite common to perform the Tech Lead role without having the impact expected of a Staff-level engineer.
My point is a bit 'bigger' than how do you operate in your position as staff engineer and what does the org need from you, what I'm getting at is about the structure of roles themselves - like it can be that your technical track/ladder (junior/mid/senior/staff/distinguished/principal/fellow/whatever) is IC that managers are completely separate, not the same people (junior/mid/senior/whatever managers). It can also be that people managers are separate, but technical management of projects is intertwined with the more senior roles.
What I was thinking about specifically, not knowing really whether anyone does this or not, was the possibility of people being on at least one of those tracks, i.e. maybe both, but that they're distinct roles. So you might be a staff engineer but a more junior manager. (And you might manage a different team than you work in, I suppose, but that would probably be inconvenient and anyway isn't really important one way or the other here.) But I suppose it also depends how or if you divide technical and people management anyway. I just don't really have the keywords to find much discussing it; your links are good though, thanks, I'll read some more on the site.