Why Staff+ Hiring Is a Different Game Entirely

There’s a persistent myth in tech that the natural career progression looks like this:

IC → Senior IC → Manager → Director → VP.

As if management is the destination and everything else is just a stop along the way. It’s nonsense and it’s costing companies some of their best technical talent.

At Dynosaur Labs, we’ve spent years hiring at the highest levels of technical leadership. From Chief Architects at Facebook (I worked there during the pre-Meta days, with what feels like a stricter ‘hiring bar’ at the time), Technical Leadership roles at Uber, Principal Architects & -Engineers for Miro, Senior Principal ML Scientists for Alphabet, etc.

These aren’t consolation prizes for people who “couldn’t make it” into management. These are some of the most impactful roles in the industry.

And hiring for them? Completely different game, trust me.

The Career Peak That Nobody Talks About

Here’s what most people don’t understand: for a certain type of engineer, staying on the IC track isn’t settling. It’s optimising.

The best Staff+ engineers I’ve worked with aren’t people who lack the soft skills for management. They’re people who recognised where their leverage actually lives. And it’s not in running standups or doing performance reviews (don’t try to persuade them otherwise).

It’s in solving problems that nobody else can solve.

A Distinguished Engineer at a major tech company might influence the technical direction of thousands of engineers without managing a single one. A Principal Architect might be the reason a product scales from 1 million to 100 million users. A Chief Scientist might hold patents that define a company’s future direction and trajectory.

The IC track at these levels isn’t about writing more code. It’s about multiplying impact through technical vision, mentorship, architecture decisions, and cross-org influence.

Different skills and leverage, same altitude as the VP or CTO sits (in close collaboration) next to them.

Why Most Companies Get This Wrong

Most companies have “dual-track” career ladders on paper. IC and management, side by side, equal in stature.

In practice? The management track gets the budget, the headcount, the strategic visibility, and the compensation. The IC track gets a fancy title and maybe some extra equity.

This creates two problems.

First, it pushes talented ICs into management roles they don’t want and aren’t suited for. The result: mediocre managers who were once exceptional engineers. The Peter Principle in action. Everybody loses.

Second, it signals to the market that senior IC roles at your company aren’t serious. The best Staff+ candidates can smell this from a mile away. They’ll take a call, ask a few pointed questions, and politely decline any further follow-up from there.

And worse, they’ll reject following up with any future recruitment outreach for the next 3 to 5 years.

That is why, when growing your technical teams at this senior of a level, you must leave it to the professionals. Often your average recruiting team will (with no bad intent ) mess this up, given they’re too requisition driven. “I have x amount of roles, I need to hire NOW”.
Anything that doesn’t fit this immediate transaction will get sidelined. Anything that needs deep research and analytics gets pushed to the side as well.

The companies that win Staff+ talent are the ones where the Principal Engineer actually has a seat at the table. Where the Staff Scientist’s input shapes company strategy. Where technical leadership isn’t a euphemism for “senior but not important.”

The Hiring Challenge Nobody Prepares You For

Here’s the thing: most hiring processes are built for managers.

Interview loops assess collaboration, communication, stakeholder management. Scorecards measure leadership potential. Reference checks ask about team dynamics.

When you’re evaluating a Principal Architect, you’re not asking “can they run a team?” You’re asking: can they see ahead of the curve? Can they make a decision today that will still be correct in three years? Can they influence without authority across a large group of engineers?

That requires a completely different lens.

At Dynosaur Labs, when we assess Staff+ candidates, we look at:

Technical fingerprints. What systems did they actually build? Not “worked on”, but actually built. What decisions did they make that are still running in production years later? What would break if they had never been there?

Scope of influence. Did their impact stay within their team, or did it ripple across the organisation? A true Staff+ engineer leaves architectural DNA across multiple products.

Signal vs noise ratio. At this level, everyone has impressive-sounding projects on their CV. The question is: were they the driving force, or were they along for the ride? This takes digging, and years of interviewing folks at this senior of a level.

Judgment under ambiguity. Senior ICs don’t get handed clear problems. They get handed ‘a mess’. We look for evidence of someone who can navigate technical and organisational ambiguity and come out with the right answer.

Teaching and multiplying. The best Staff+ engineers make everyone around them better. Not through management, but through code reviews, design docs, mentorship moments, and raising the bar on what “good” looks like.

This isn’t something you can assess with a standard interview loop. It takes pattern recognition, reference depth, and understanding what excellence looks like at this altitude.

What This Means For Companies Not Named Meta

Here’s where it gets interesting for most of our clients.

You might be thinking: “We’re not hiring Chief Architects at my company. We’re struggling to even hire a Staff Engineer.”

Fair. But here’s the thing: the evaluation frameworks are the same. The patterns are the same. The mistakes companies make are the same.

The difference is just altitude.

When you’ve spent years hiring at the outlier level (where the margin for error is zero and the candidates have a multitude of competing offers) you develop a sense for what separates good from exceptional. You learn to read careers, not just CVs. You understand what questions to ask and what answers actually matter.

That translates directly to Staff-level hiring. And Senior Staff. And Principal.

Most companies we work with have never successfully hired at Staff+ level. They don’t know what to look for. They over-index on years of experience. They confuse “senior” with “Staff.” They run interview loops designed for mid-level engineers and wonder why their top candidate ghost them.

The Real Question

If you’re building a technical organisation, at some point you need to ask yourself: do we actually value technical leadership?

Not in the abstract, but in practice.

Does your Staff Engineer have the same influence as your Engineering Manager? Does your Principal Architect get pulled into strategic conversations? Does your compensation band reflect that these roles are genuinely senior?

If the answer is no, you’ll struggle to hire for these roles. The best candidates will sense it.

If the answer is yes, you’ve unlocked access to a talent pool that most companies never tap. Engineers who want to go deep, not wide. They’ll want to solve the hardest problems, not manage the people solving them. Who want to build things that last.

That’s not a lesser ambition. That’s a different one. And for the right person, it’s exactly where they should be.

Staff-level hiring isn’t about brighter colours on a CV. It’s about the shadows. The depth. The parts of a career that only reveal themselves when the light hits from the right angle. Most companies don’t adjust that angle. Instead they just turn up the brightness and hope for the best.

The best talent sees your organisation the way light hits a valley: what’s real, shows up fast.

Final Thought

The best technical leaders I’ve placed didn’t “end up” as ICs. They chose it. Deliberately; a case of eyes-wide-open.

They looked at the management track and said: that’s not where my leverage is. They looked at Staff, Principal, Distinguished, and said: this is where I can do my best work.

That clarity is rare. And when you find it in a candidate, paired with the technical depth to back it up, you’ve found someone who can change the trajectory of your engineering organisation.

Watch out for folks who are just a little too excited by the title vs the actual responsibilities. The ability to self-assess impact usually comes with over a more well established career. Folks who dip in and out jobs in order to reach a Staff+ job title are easy enough to spot. Stay critical.

At Dynosaur Labs, that’s exactly who we spend our time finding. Whether it’s a Chief Architect for a tech giant or a first Staff Engineer for a Series B startup, the pattern recognition is the same.

Next up in the series: engineering archetypes, and the different career flavours senior engineers can have. From the systems thinker who sees three years ahead, to the firefighter who thrives in chaos, to the multiplier who makes everyone around them 10x better. Understanding these patterns changes how you hire, how you evaluate, and who you bring in. Follow along, or keep filtering out your best candidates. I’ll be over here with a coffee, a spreadsheet, and a deep appreciation for engineers who chose depth over management.

Want to discuss your technical hiring challenges? Read more and book a free consultation at dynosaurlabs.com/blog

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