The staff are the people employed by Stack Overflow (Stack Exchange, Inc.) for various purposes. These are paid, not volunteer, positions. While the most visible staff members are often those on our Community Management and Public Platform teams, these are a small subset of the staff who keep this platform running.
How can I identify a staff member?
Staff fall into one of two categories, with different indicators:
General staff: These staff members represent the bulk of our employees. They are regular users for the most part. If you see one of them on our meta sites, a "Staff" label will be shown next to their username on their posts and comments. They also have a "Staff" label on their profile page on both meta and non-meta sites.
Diamond staff: A small subset of our staff – generally the developers, engineers, and community team members – need special access to moderation tools and content. They are more visible and bear a diamond (♦) next to their username, just like our elected site moderators; on meta sites, both the "Staff" and "♦ Mod" labels will appear by their username. In addition, both the "Staff" and "♦ Moderator" labels will be shown on their profile page on both meta and non-meta sites.