Different aspects of the job:
- Project delivery.
- Big picture thinking.
- Could be both vision or strategy.
- Mentorship.
Different skills they need:
- Technical skills.
- Product management.
- Project management.
- People skills: how to organize people to work as a team, grow their careers etc.
Different archetypes, i.e. style of work they do:
- Team lead: usually a starting point for a Staff engineer, something they transition into from a senior engineering role.
- Architect.
- Solvers: usually present in teams that place more emphasis on individual contributions than on teams.
- Right hands: borrow power from and act as proxies for senior leadership.