L6: Staff Engineer
You expand the envelope of what the org can safely build.
scope: multi-team systems, platform layers, or cross-cutting concerns.autonomy: defines strategy in partnership with EMs/PMs.ambiguity: very high; you discover problems worth solving.influence: across teams/orgs; sets technical direction and standards.
Staff is less “more code” and more “create leverage.” You unblock teams at scale: foundational libraries, migrations, reliability programs, or performance initiatives.
