Just a misunderstanding, then - thanks for taking the time to clear it up, I appreciate it.

Strange that your company calls its tech leads "senior engineers", when every other company is going through title inflation! Hiring for those roles must be a pain.

I've never worked at a company that had a "tech lead" role as part of official HR levels. Junior engineers (couple levels) -> Senior Engineers (couple levels) -> Principle/Staff (couple levels) -> some form of really rare role of Distinguished.

Senior Engineers should definitely do what I think earlier comment thought of as "tech lead". Should be able to run juniors, solve cross-cutting needs, etc....