Where did you learn about this "staff engineer" track?
I have worked at two Fortune 500 tech firms. They had separate career tracks where one was people management focused and the other nominally technical. At both firms the technical track was more like "technical management". None of the folks with high-level technical titles were committing code or doing hands on-technical work. The only difference with line management titles was less personnel responsibility. That is, on the technical track you would not generally need to deal with things like disgruntled employees, giving performance reports, sick time, etc.
IOW, the technical track was a lot like being a tenured professor at a major university. You have intimate knowledge of the research happening and you help may design the experiments. But you are not the one who sits down and runs the experiments.
I do not think the OP would be happy on a technical track in a major company, at least not as I have seen those tracks work. Rather, they would need to work with their line and project management such that they level out at a title where project leadership and decision making is not expected. Maybe that is what you mean by "staff engineer track." You get a Staff Engineer title (or Engineer 3, or Prinicpal or Senior - titles vary so much) and never get another promotion while still collecting merit increases and bonuses.
There's minor disagreements, but it's a good start. Ignore the book unless you feel compelled. It's a nice site to use to make sure we're all using the same terminology.
I have worked at two Fortune 500 tech firms. They had separate career tracks where one was people management focused and the other nominally technical. At both firms the technical track was more like "technical management". None of the folks with high-level technical titles were committing code or doing hands on-technical work. The only difference with line management titles was less personnel responsibility. That is, on the technical track you would not generally need to deal with things like disgruntled employees, giving performance reports, sick time, etc.
IOW, the technical track was a lot like being a tenured professor at a major university. You have intimate knowledge of the research happening and you help may design the experiments. But you are not the one who sits down and runs the experiments.
I do not think the OP would be happy on a technical track in a major company, at least not as I have seen those tracks work. Rather, they would need to work with their line and project management such that they level out at a title where project leadership and decision making is not expected. Maybe that is what you mean by "staff engineer track." You get a Staff Engineer title (or Engineer 3, or Prinicpal or Senior - titles vary so much) and never get another promotion while still collecting merit increases and bonuses.