this is closer to my experiences than the people talking about nonstop meetings. I report directly to the cto and basically do whatever i want(as a staff eng, 100+ engineers)
Two main criteria at our company is the breadth of work you do -  instead of being the best on one project, its expected that you can hop in wherever needed.  I don&#x27;t get assigned tasks, bounce around between many teams, and am expected to be connected enough to know what needs doing.  Also multiply others - identifying and&#x2F;or solving a problem that makes everyone 10% more efficient, or training&#x2F;teaching&#x2F;etc.<p>The other thing expectation is product and business focus.  Understanding how what youre doing affects the business, making changes that solve business problems.  It&#x27;s cool to make something 10% faster, but the expectation is you understand that if spending your time elsewhere will increase revenue, youll do that.  Often I&#x27;ve found the product team assumes a thing is impossible, but if you understand the problems the business is facing, you can recommend the solution they thought was too hard to even bring to the eng team.<p>Yea, there are more meetings than as a regular engineer, and probably do less &quot;work&quot;, but i dont find it political and your impact is larger in that you are making every other engineer better, and more control and input on the business.