Staff engineer role confusion | Ramblin' & Amblin' | Oct 21, 2026
Ramblin' & Amblin' Field Notes with Mike Hall (Staff Software Engineer)
Recorded on the move: engineering observations, systems architecture, and software craftsmanship reflections.
• Series Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNtb969T2-l0
• The Sound Above Curriculum: https://www.just3ws.com/series/the-sound-above/
• Canonical Profile: https://www.just3ws.com
Spoken Overview:
"This role of staff engineer is not well understood in the industry, like so many other titles and roles that we've just, they have no idea what they really mean, because there's no one unified shared understanding of the term...."
Recorded: October 21, 2026
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
This role of staff engineer is not well understood in the
industry, like so many other titles and roles that we've
just, they have no idea what they really mean, because
there's no one unified shared understanding of the term. You know, one place it's, it's the super engineer, and the
other one it is somebody who works across multiple teams,
it's an interface layer. See, here's my trick, because I, I
had the image of a foreman, you know, in my head. They were usually, you know, the best, most skilled, most
talented, most trusted mechanic on the line, you know, for,
for their space.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And, and they held responsibility for the quality and, uh,
uh, correctness of, of the other mechanics, and, you know,
that their tools were up to, just back in that they came
ready for work. Um, and, uh, they knew how to do their job, you know, and,
um, you know, the, uh, the boss would, you know, say what
needs to be done. And then the, uh, the, uh, foreman would help make sure
that the people, um, that, that knew what to do were, were
leveraged and, and, and worked, uh, together appropriately. So, um, um, it was, uh, it was a, it was a highly skilled
and, and, um, respected, uh, position by his peers and his,
um, and his, um, managers.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Um, even after the company collapsed, I, I had met people
who knew my father and they, I also saw the quality of his
work, um, and, and, and his, uh, diligence. But, um, uh, that was when you had, you know, this, this
unified self-description by the people that were doing the,
the work. And, um, I'll also say, you know, just, you know, this is
post-war, you know, post-Korea War. There was a lot, there was a lot of people who were, had
served, or at least been through military training, um, or
were so used to working with people who had, um, that there
was a, uh,
more training to work inside of the kind of structured, um,
um, collaborative environment, um, you know, mission-
oriented.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And, uh, that, that's, you know, how I approached staff
engineer when it was first presented to me, uh, like, it
went from being, I've been, one place, I've been a, I was a
principal developer. Uh, another place, I was a senior developer, other place, I
'm a lead developer, one place, I'm the, uh, talent
development partner for engineering. Um, uh, I've, uh, you know, also been an architect, um, I
've been a, uh, staff engineer now, and the staff engineer
one feels the most true, uh, to be different from just a
regular senior developer. And that's why I, I, I see it as being more like that fore
man, and that's, uh, not a universal understanding.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Again, I, I, it depends on the maturity of your
organization in that, um, you are, um, at, at the size and
scale where you need that cross collaboration and, and, and
decision-making. I think, uh, the staff engineer in a really small
organization that only has a handful of teams, uh, at most,
um, probably could be handled by a principal engineer, but,
uh, the staff engineer is really about, you need a couple
teams that need coordination, they need to share resources
and collaborate, they need to make common decisions where,
what one team's choices are in form. And it's informed by the, uh, and that they're aligned with
, uh, the technical mission, uh, and the operation of, of
the business, uh, whether that be from implementing
features that are, are being requested efficiently and, and
safely, uh, through to, uh, uh, working with the engineers. I understand how to write more efficient tests, uh, that
have a higher, um, um, signal, uh, and, and wire up, um, um
, um, metrics where it, it, it shows the value of, of that
space.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Uh, things like that, uh, things like that that are, uh, to
me, uh, helping, uh, the engineering management, the
engineering, uh, team to implement and, and drive forward
whatever their, um, team's agenda is, the mandate is. Um, but, uh, smaller organizations where they don't have
that, um, that need that they can become that the staff
engineer is really a vanity title, much like how software
architect was used for a long time as a vanity title in
enterprise organizations. Just to say, we're, we want you to do a lot more than just
be a developer, but really, you're just a super developer,
you know, like we, there's, there's a, there's a total
disconnect in understanding of these roles. And it's just being out here in a, and even as I'm trying
to describe this history, it's only to, to underline, uh,
underscore how being, going from one interview to another
and looking at, uh, the same title of staff engineer and
just the wildly different understandings of what a staff
engineer does.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Um, and the expectations, um, mean that it's really hard to
calibrate, um, at least for me, because my primary
experience was at scale working across sometimes dozens of
teams, um, in a given week, uh, while still having, you
know, focus on, on my primary lane. Um, but when you go to an organization that has a hundred
people all told and they've got the concept of staff
engineer, well, well, we used to call them a lead engineer,
you know, like, like it's different, it's different. Um, and again, it's, that there is no centralized, and, and
the centralization doesn't have to be like some author
itative committee. It's just some agreed upon standards that, um, you know, we
have HTTP, we have, you know, we have standards.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Um, but there's been people that have, have worked inside
of the software industry to, uh, undermine that as well,
because they did better when they were feeling like, uh, by
being a bunch of independents, they, uh, could make more
money. Um, so I'm getting a little tired of those people getting
boosted all the time. But, uh, the fact is, is that everybody's confused. The interviewee, like myself, has one expectation of what
this role is.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
The employer has their own untethered, sometimes it's based
on their needs and their own experience level. Um, and there's just mismatch after mismatch after mismatch
, because I've been on interviews where I'm getting, um,
leak code questions where, and, and this one made me salty
too, because I, I solved it. I did the, uh, the, uh, algorithm, but I just couldn't
remember the name of the algorithm, flood fill. I just was like, oh my gosh, and he didn't like my, uh,
variable names and that I took five minutes too long.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Um, the, uh, but I did it live, you know, cold, nothing,
just implement this. I'm a staff engineer. I can make your, um, PII that's spread out over 200 tables. I can work with getting that under control.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I can do a lot of things and I can do your, your flood fill
algorithm, but if you're going to be timing me and you're
going to ding me for five minutes and not remember the name
, buddy, I have so many things that I can't remember the
name of, uh, that I've done in production. Uh, another one is, um, at scale that made a lot of money
and then had other people write about
it. Um, but I was always fine with being the, the, the silent
mechanic in the, in the back. Um, just keeping the fleet run, cause I thought that's what
the deal was.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
You keep the machine humming, you get to keep the machine
humming. Um, not, um, we're going to just, let it just see how long
it goes. Um, another interview was, uh, I mean, I'm talking recent,
like, I, I'm not going to say that I am a graceful goose on
, on, on, on, uh, on these interviews. I've been super stressed out and, uh, one was actually like
somebody knew me and, and I had some kind of reputation and
that actually
just made me more anxious.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And then we're doing the coding exercises and I'm just like
, I've been doing this for so long. Um, and I'm being asked to just write an object or write a
little blog or write, write a little, um, we're going to do
an algorithm. We're going to just like, at what point of me putting coder
pad into Vim mode and saying, all right, yeah. All right.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
So here, listen, listen, I, um, I'm going to work through
this. Do you want to see tests? Do you want to see object model? You just want to hear how I think.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Okay, cool. Here's the thing about how I think, I think like somebody
who's done this for 26 years and has military background,
industrial background, all kinds of discipline. Who, who's done this in production when everybody else is
scared and, um, wrote the, you know, you could say the map
of an entire multibillion dollar system, um, is, uh, single
-handedly lifted up entire initiatives. Um, and, and, and gotten teams from total, uh, stagnation
into being lauded by C-level executives for improvements in
quality and being the only ones to have, have been totally
in compliance on a certain topic.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And, uh, like it was a big deal, um, and, uh, what I
learned over this long time is, uh, I've even been told the
one, I'm the one person that could tell us what normal
looks like by C-level executive, a multibillion dollar
organization. Well, SVPs carry a lot of power, and if you're not careful,
they're patient. And, uh, I, uh, I will say that I go into these interviews
and it isn't, I, I do have, you know, like I want to do
good faith here. I'm, I don't go into these interviews and think I'm better
than anyone.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I'm going to do my best with the COVID, but I also know
that my disposition towards this stuff is not the same as
somebody who's got maybe nine years and they've, uh, worked
largely in the same organization or that they had changed
jobs before, let's say, COVID last. Um, or they went through a boot camp, um, and they're
sitting down in front of me and they're trying to assess,
um, my thinking. Here's the thing, like, I've been on the other side of
training up people like that and bringing them to the next
level, but they don't know that. They don't know that.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
They just know that I'm there interviewing them and then
they have to make an assessment using the only rubric that
they have is, well, usually the last time they, uh, took a
test or a checklist of, of criteria. Um, and, um, when you don't necessarily do whatever
cultural norms they're expecting, um, they're not going to
have the, um, calibration. Um, so it's, it's, it's a miscalibration, um, like having a
staff engineer come in and from, from zero, um, there's
already ambiguity in, in what their organizational
understanding of the role that they're hiring for is. Um, and then just go from there, um, the, uh, you know, the
, I, I understand the culture fit and all that stuff, but
the, uh, the coding exercises, um, need to be calibrated,
um, because there is, um,
a fundamental difference in the disposition to code for me
and now, um, as a, uh, as a senior staff engineer who's
been out in the AI space.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Um, and that when I'm looking at this, I'm seeing a very
cute version of this, um, you know, I'm sure I'm not the
first one to say this, because obviously, obviously the
movie existed, but the Logan Throne Syndrome is that the
people are too young to have the breadth of context to make
a meaningful assessment. So they make the assessment with the only thing that they
have available to them, and that is their experience
limited be, though it might be, they simply just haven't
gotten over the hill to see what was really in the, the
valley, um, on the other side. Um, I've been up and down the valley, and I was grinding
the lip, but, uh, the thing is, is that I'm with somebody
whose only experience has been, um, playing skate or die on
the Nintendo Entertainment System. Um, and they're deciding whether or not my drop-in was rad,
and it's like, did you see it was off of the entire side of
a building?
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Um, yeah, I only dropped in, and then I crashed at the
bottom, but I did it off the side of a building. I mean, did you notice that part? Uh, yeah, I, I made it the whole way down. I, and where I crashed, I was supposed to crash.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
That was it. That was where I was set up to crash. That was the intended target. Um, but it's endemic, because the people that put time in
those seats to make those assertions and things that they
really just aren't qualified for,
and the true sense of they haven't done the qualifications
to be able to meaningfully assess what it is that a staff
engineer is,
because usually the organization has no idea, and there is
no shared consensus that they could have even learned,
because really, it's a, it's a relatively new title, um, in
, in, in the grand scheme of things.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Maybe in, in, uh, Fangland, you guys have had that for a
long time, but it's, uh, it's new out here. And, uh, like all new things that came from Fangland, there
's just a, uh, much like the leak code,
much like, um, you know, how many, um, marbles can you fit
in a 747? Um, I've run into those too over the years. Um, that's, uh, that it's, it's not going to get better.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Uh, we're in Logan's run syndrome. The people that are being tasked with making these, um,
assertions are so, um, unprepared, uh,
by their organizations and, and, and their hiring bodies,
because those places have also been, um, under, you know,
dysfunction for a long time. That's, uh, it's like, it's like an impossible situation. Like I, I, like I go into these interviews and, um, you
know, I've not really been able to articulate this.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And that's why I'm doing these videos is that, um, I have
like so much anxiety and it's, I've, I've even marked it. I said, you know, I've been on calls where it is somebody
on the call said,
every minute we're down, it's like a million blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah dollars. And I'm like, cool story. You know what?
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Go check Garfana. Okay. Like, and shut up. I got, I, and you can do stuff like that when you're in a
call where you're the one that is leading the group
and everybody's doing what you tell them to do because
everybody is freaking out.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And also everybody wants to help and be part of the
solution. And then there's even sometimes people that are coming in,
they want to be part of the solution
just because they want to be part of the solution. And you got to manage them too. Like people that love someone's scuba gear, you know, they
always going to insert themselves
in an emergency.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I've seen people try to put their little scuba gear in
serious situations too. But then you're sitting on a call and there's four people
watching you
and they're not really telling you what they want. And then you'll hear like, well, what about, and it's like,
oh, okay, there is a secret script. Listen, guys, I've been on your side enough times, but how
would they know that?
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I've literally done hundreds, hundreds of tech screens,
probably thousands of tech screens over my career. I've done coding exercises, never really did the live ones
with anybody. I was mostly receiving under those, but tech screens, fit
assessments. So I know a bit about what to expect on the other side.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And that is also the lack of diligence that I don't know
why people aren't looking at resumes. But then again, I told a story about Apple about 15 odd
years ago, totally not even realizing that I wasn't
applying for a PHP position. I was applying for a Ruby position and the manager got
annoyed with me because they had a miscommunication. None of this is new, but the problem is, is everybody is.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
So they don't know. And the people that are paying them and have the nice suits
and the sparkly smiles are telling them that it's really
the last guy,
the last gal, the last person to blame, or it's them over
there and that they've been brought in special and that
they're special. They are. Just not for the reasons that person wants.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
So, yeah, interviews are frustrating. The calibration for assessments is just completely
arbitrary. Who knows? Because between all the interviews I've been on, nobody
really seems to know and it's a crap shoot.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And I'm a nervous wreck and everybody's fucking dysfunction
al right now. But right now, I'm the one that's got to really figure it
out. So, anywho, if you're feeling it, I don't think you're
imagining it. All right, thanks, bye.