Totally disagree with the section "What’s not part of the job"
Part of any job is stepping up and deputising for your manager, sure if you don't want career progression or want to go into the technical side you could argue they would try and do some of that instead, but if you want to be a senior you have to be a rounded individual that can mentor new starters, help with sprint planning when your boss is not around. Thats part of being a senior, otherwise you are just a good Mid.
I also did a double-take on the title of that section. I resolved my conflicy by mentally renaming it "What's more another role's responsibility." So yes, a senior engineer does these things, but it's not primarily on them.
With that renaming, the two lists in the post more accurately describe my recent positions as senior/staff engineer than anything else I've read, so I have to say I very much agree.
People should do what lies within their realm of capabilities. I know enough people who are fine programmers but who lack the overview or sense of connectedness between certain task or the ability to think about the business value of certain tasks in order to make decisions when things start to take too long or become too complex. Those people should not take care of handling the sprint when the person who normally does that is away.
So no, not every engineer should take care of the team's planning.
Well in my team sprint planning is a team job. Everybody gets together and plans the next stories. Usually different people have knowledge/interests on different stories, so nearly everyone gets some input.
Heck in the scrum guide this is the way it's meant to be.
If your engineers can't factor in business value, or work dependencies its usually because people are hoarding knowledge so they dont have the ability to factor that in.
I didn't say the team as a whole wouldn't be able to contribute. I was saying that not all people are able to take over day to day planning individually.
"its usually because people are hoarding knowledge so they dont have the ability to factor that in."
That is like saying that everybody who isn't smart, must be good with their hands. Some people are just not good at certain things, no matter how much they are enabled to do those things. Which is completely fine.
Part of any job is stepping up and deputising for your manager, sure if you don't want career progression or want to go into the technical side you could argue they would try and do some of that instead, but if you want to be a senior you have to be a rounded individual that can mentor new starters, help with sprint planning when your boss is not around. Thats part of being a senior, otherwise you are just a good Mid.