That depends heavily on the shape of your data, what your workload looks like, what sort of consistency guarantees you need, etc. I recommend Designing Data Intensive Applications for getting a handle on this - it's the book I suggest to SDE IIs who are hungry for the jump to senior. Not a quick read, but well written, and there's not really a shortcut to deep understanding other than deep study.
> I suggest to SDE IIs who are hungry for the jump to senior
Any suggestions for seniors who are hungry for a staff title. Is there any value to specializing in tech anymore after senior or is it all 'soft skills' at this point ?
It is not all any one thing. If you’re completely lacking in soft skills, you’ll probably have more trouble the higher up you go, and you may get stuck at some point. Hard technical skills become less important the higher you go, but even the CEO of a tech company probably still needs to have some basic understanding of technology. Being good at both things is obviously the best way forward.
