alt Hacker NewsThats what we call a Staff level engineer. Proven ability to learn, implement and validate is basically the "it factor" businesses are looking for.
If you are thinking about this from an academic angle then sure its sounds weird to say "Two Staff jobs in a row from the University of LinkedIn" as a degree. But I submit this as basically the certificate you desire.
No, this is not at all being a staff engineer. One is about delivering high-impact projects toward a business's needs, with all the soft/political things that involves, and the other is about implementing and validating cutting-edge research, with all the deep academic and technical knowledge and work that that involves. They're incredibly different skillsets, and many people doing one would easily fail in the other.