Absolutely — the sudden lionization of the term "staff" seems to be a combination of a personal marketing push (from those selling the shovels) combined with being a useful recruiting strategy.
At one big tech company I worked at, it was never mentioned even once for years and years, and then introduced very suddenly. All existing engineers were grouped into staff versus non-staff based on their existing level, and from then on it was used for recruiting purposes — a superior title to sweeten the offer pot for experienced engineers in a competitive talent market.
I'm personally familiar with some of the people being interviewed on this list and they're fine engineers, but certainly no better than many non-staff engineers at their same companies. And to imply that they're some kind of rare, exotic special species that's totally apart from their non-staff counterparts is in total honesty, just weird.
Nearest I can tell, the term "staff engineer" was an unusual one in use at certain shops, and was popularized big time around 2020. I've kept every recruiter email I've ever gotten since 2018. Prior to 2020, the term "staff" was mentioned in exactly two of them. Starting around Feb 2020, it's now mentioned in 20+ emails a year. Before it, we just used other terms like "principal" instead.
At one big tech company I worked at, it was never mentioned even once for years and years, and then introduced very suddenly. All existing engineers were grouped into staff versus non-staff based on their existing level, and from then on it was used for recruiting purposes — a superior title to sweeten the offer pot for experienced engineers in a competitive talent market.
I'm personally familiar with some of the people being interviewed on this list and they're fine engineers, but certainly no better than many non-staff engineers at their same companies. And to imply that they're some kind of rare, exotic special species that's totally apart from their non-staff counterparts is in total honesty, just weird.
Nearest I can tell, the term "staff engineer" was an unusual one in use at certain shops, and was popularized big time around 2020. I've kept every recruiter email I've ever gotten since 2018. Prior to 2020, the term "staff" was mentioned in exactly two of them. Starting around Feb 2020, it's now mentioned in 20+ emails a year. Before it, we just used other terms like "principal" instead.