This article feels a little bit pointless to me. ryandvm said it perfectly - a staff engineer is just what happens when you have a senior engineer who deserves a promotion, but wants to be a technical leader not a people leader. How that actually fits into the company varies heavily company to company, specifically size and maturity.
I feel like this article wants to talk about the performance matrix through the lens of four pillars, and just arbitrarily chose "staff" as the role to talk about since it's a very senior engineer.
I feel like this article wants to talk about the performance matrix through the lens of four pillars, and just arbitrarily chose "staff" as the role to talk about since it's a very senior engineer.