Some time ago Piotr Stapp explored the “leader” part of the staff+ engineer role. It’s the part that often eludes new staff+ engineers or those aspiring to such a role. In contrast, the “engineer” part of staff+ engineer seems to be the obvious part (it’s even in the name). But is it obvious? In my experience, not necessarily. In fact, there is an ongoing debate about whether software engineering qualifies as "real" engineering.