[modelviewpotato]

I’m currently a Staff+ Engineer at a huge multinational company. Had that conversation when I came here because the role was not very well specified and you were supposed to do both people management and continue working as an IC. I spent months trying to get this clarified while doing both roles and it was a mess. I spent 90% of my time doing management things and very little IC work or keeping up to date on the technical side.

This year I pushed them to set a date for me to transition to an actual Staff+ role or my time with the company would come to an end. My manager moved heaven and earth for me to get this and we have a finally have a plan, so we will see how that goes.

If it is something you really want, push for having a technical leadership role with clearly defined responsibilities (and actual ownership and empowerment). There is nothing worse than turning a great engineer into a mediocre manager.

If/when you actually have that, you will still spend most of your time attending meeting, doing planning and providing input into tons of things but not actually contributing directly. So in order to keep up-to-date you will have to define how you will do it, while still using company time. Myself, I usually book a full day to try new technologies, do PoCs, read books, watch talks, attend courses. Not always possible but I at least try to spread those 8 hours throughout the week and actually make use of them to keep learning.

A question that a lot of people that reach the higher-level of a Senior role is how to keep progressing in terms of career/compensation but still be able to keep coding during a large part of my time? The answer is you don’t (not on most companies at least): after Senior Level your value to the company is in you experience and your domain/company knowledge that you accrued over time. The best possible way to make use of that is to have you help other people grow and cross-pollinate multiple people/teams using that knowledge.

Good luck!