What are some roles after Staff?

Yes, the most common path after Staff Engineer is a transition into management.

Upward mobility is, frankly, easier on the management chain than on the IC ladder. Growing as a manager is about increasing the # of people reporting to you, not necessarily needing to keep up with the latest framework/tech changes (which can get especially tiring if you've been coding for 10+ years).

Staff Engineers have a ton of context about the team and the respect of their peers, so their transition to management is graceful.

Here's a relevant question about How to make the decision on Staff IC vs manager roles?

Here's all the possible paths:

1. Stay as a Staff Engineer (most common)
2. Switch into management (2nd most common)
3. Try to get to Senior Staff and Principal (this is attempted a lot, but most people fail as those levels are insanely difficult)
4. Pivot out of SWE (for those who pivot, I think PM is the most common)
5. Go back to senior (this is a work-life balance play which is more common than people think)

When it comes to management, I recommend this: [Taro Top 10] Software Engineer To Engineering Manager (IC -> M Track)

For the less common (but still very exciting) transition to product management: [Taro Top 10] Product Management For Engineers