With what other role / direction would you be satisfied instead of being SE? Going up in the IC ladder (lead, staff, etc.) or management? What disadvantages do you see settling at SE?
Staff is the natural progression for people who want to take the next step but don’t want direct reports. Each company has its own definition of a staff engineer's responsibilities. I’ve seen people move back to SE after burning out from all the meetings. In some places, staff engineers rarely code and are essentially glorified team leads.
But there are definitely companies where Staff engineers get to do some awesome work and there's a proper delineation between a Staff and a TL. I'm yet to work in a company like that yet.
