How to get promoted to Staff (ICT5)?

It seems at Apple that getting promoted past ICT4 can take ages.

In generally, making it to staff is very hard at a FAANG/FAANG-equivalent company. I know a lot of folks who get "stuck" on this promotion. I've heard that Apple's promotion speeds generally aren't fast unfortunately.

There is no leveling rubric that I can find

This is really surprising to me given how big and established Apple is. Did you ask your manager about this, and they confirmed that this indeed doesn't exist?

I'm thinking it might even just be worth abandoning the promo goal for the duration I work here, then aim to be hired into a promo at the next gig in a few years.

I wouldn't get too discouraged like this - This mentality can lead to a self-fulfilling negative-outcome prophecy where you are indeed stuck at senior. Some thoughts from me:

1. Is there a staff engineer in your team/org that you can emulate?
2. How does your manager react when you ask them on how you two can work together to create an expectations plan to get to staff?
3. What big problems exist in your org? Is it alignment issues? Some technical roadblock on the product? Bad infra/internal tooling?

For resources on how to get staff, here's my picks:

• "What's the Difference Between A Senior And Staff Engineer?" - This is from the Head of Searching Engineering at Airbnb, Rachel Zhao, who's had an extraordinary career. I highly recommend checking out all the related resources on that video as well.
• "How do I lead without authority?" - Relationship building is absolutely crucial for 90% of staff engineers, and this Q&A goes through that in-depth.