The most straightforward answer is that Staff engineers keep doing much of what made them successful as Senior engineers: building relationships, writing software, coordinating projects. However, that’s a misleading answer. Staff engineers do those same tasks, but whereas previously they were the core of their work, now they’re auxiliary tasks. Their daily schedule varies a bit by archetype, but there’s a shared foundation across all archetypes: setting and editing technical direction, providing sponsorship and mentorship, injecting engineering context into organizational decisions, exploration, and what Tanya Reilly calls being glue.