At my current company, after some time, I ended up becoming a staff engineer/technical lead. I lead a small team of 4 engineers and consult with another four teams of a similar size. The other teams span different parts of the tech stack.

From what I see, progressing into enterprise architecture, or management is starting to seem difficult at this current company and I have no support to do so (for several reasons, such as office politics). I already do quite some system design and architecture, and also some management, but it's not really in my job description (or only partly).

While I am not exactly unhappy, it has left me wondering whether I am working myself into a rut. These days, I rarely ever start and finish a single task end to end. When I code, I am either building proof of concepts, or helping someone debug. Moreover, I also pass on most interesting work to particular engineers to keep them motivated.

I am fine with all this, but I feel like I am becoming less sharp as a developer, and I'm not really pushing forward towards anything else.

When I look for jobs out there:

• Other Staff Engineer/Lead Jobs: Looking for a staff engineer on a stack which is similar but using different tech. (Think Python vs Java, AWS vs GCP etc.) - Unless I dedicate a ridiculous amount of time to learning a tech stack which I don't even use day-to-day, these jobs feel out of reach. As staff engineer, I somehow feel limited to having to bring some technical expertise, and if I can't bring that, how will I get hired? All these jobs seem way too specific to the particular company.
• Engineering Management: Typically looking for people with 3-5 years managing a team. I have not been in this role for that long, but even if I were, my current role is quite hands-on to be classified as "pure management". I am not even sure if I'd want this route, considering I never received any support to consider it.
• Senior Engineer: Given the the previous options, going back to senior engineer seems the path of least resistance. At least if I move to a company with a different tech stack, they will let me learn on the job (as opposed to joining as a staff engineer).

Given the above three choices, I feel like the "staff engineer" role is pretty much cursed or a poison chalice and I might need to take a minor pay cut (go to senior engineer) or go through a tough time re-skilling to appeal.

This feels unfair, and if it is really the case, I think I was kind of duped into thinking this progress was a good opportunity for me. I almost feel like such jobs are so tightly coupled to the company you work for, that they should come with a disclaimer.

Please change my mind and show me the way. I am very confused.

​

If you are a staff engineer/principal engineer/technical lead, or have been, please tell me what your career path is like.