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My thoughts about the Principal role

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Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#61

Post by sgerenser »

r00fus wrote: post #60
sgerenser wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one started at Amazon before 2016 or so, and put in a full 4 years to get 100% of their new hire stock vesting, they’d easily have more than $1 million just in stock. That plus all your other savings from the time you put in can make relaxing in a lower paid role for the next N years until you’re ready to retire an attractive proposition.

Depending on where you live (and whether you own property) that may not be a lot if you are the only breadwinner with a family to raise.

Edited my comment. The $1M is essentially on top of whatever you’d normally be able to save. If that is a lot more than $0 then most people would be in a pretty good position to take a lower paying job for as long as they want then retire comfortably.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#62

Post by karaterobot »

version_five wrote: post #7

It's common in the consulting industry to have a wide range of titles - [senior] manager / principal, director, managing director, executive director, vice president, associate partner, etc. Depending on the firm, literally all of those could refer to a similar job. The reason I've seen put forward for this is to make it hard to compare titles, so that a person can feel like their title matches their seniority. I've…

This, to the extent that after 13-14 years in the industry, I have no clue what differentiates any of these titles in theory, let alone in practice at individual organizations.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#63

Post by alistairSH »

didibus wrote: post #57
vp8989 wrote: post #27

I have personally not found the staff/principal level very enjoyable or satisfying. You end up being a hub for the larger team, helping everyone do their jobs. I'm not just referring to the coders. It's very draining and I resent that the industry classifies this type of work as technical IC work. A small subset of these higher "IC" roles do get to focus on technical IC work, but for most people a staff/principal rol…

That's currently my worry as I grow, PE is the next level up, but I don't know if I want to get this far removed from the concrete code deliverables and software architectural decisions.

Does your employer have a separate software architect track? We have basically 3 tracks... developer, architect, and engineer. Developers write application code and the principals end up in that "hub" role mentioned up-thread. It's a good role, if you enjoy it. Architects drive corporate-wide tech direction, build new products from scratch (alongside developers), and some spend a lot of time working on standards and processes. And engineers are the DevOps/CloudOps guys - they code, but it's more scripting things and wiring systems together (vs building business apps) and they're on call. But, between the 3 general roles, there's pretty much a job for everybody.

I'm in an SRE role now, big change from a UX developer/manager (did that for 15+ years), but also fun and challenging, just in different ways.

Edit - All three tracks end up in some variety of "hub" role. Senior architects end up in meetings with VPs and other senior leaders. And writing documentation and diagrams. Engineers end up with lots of customer-facing time, which can be stressful if you don't thrive under pressure. Kind of comes with seniority. If you don't "play well with others" there's nothing wrong with staying in a true IC role - but you need to have the self-awareness and communication skills to make it known. And it definitely caps out a lower compensation level (ignoring some very niche skills).

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#64

Post by spenczar5 »

wikibob wrote: post #44
spenczar5 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my job as a PE in AWS, and now work on writing performance-critical code in a scientific context. I couldn’t be happier with the decision. If you’re considering getting out, I would encourage it. Getting back to working on primarily technical problems, rather than social/communication scaling ones, has been great for my overall happiness.

How did that decision impact you financially? Were you able to get something in a similar range as what levels.fyi lists for an Amazon Principle Engineer ($640,000 [0])? Or did you become financially independent from the Amazon comp which allowed you to not care about the new lower salary? [0] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi...

I saved most of what I made from the Amazon comp, and now have more than enough to feel comfortable.

Now, I get $110,000 per year. That's plenty. I have a family, but my wife works too in tech and has a good income.

The marginal value of the extra income from working in big tech just wasn't worth it for me.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#65

Post by spenczar5 »

planet-and-halo wrote: post #52
spenczar5 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my job as a PE in AWS, and now work on writing performance-critical code in a scientific context. I couldn’t be happier with the decision. If you’re considering getting out, I would encourage it. Getting back to working on primarily technical problems, rather than social/communication scaling ones, has been great for my overall happiness.

How did you get into scientific computing? This is something I've been interested in but not sure what paths look like.

I've long been interested in astronomy - I majored in it in college. So I just emailed a professor out of the blue. I looked for one whose personal page said a lot about "astronomy software." We met for coffee, and it went from there.

I think it's pretty easy to find tons and tons of scientific groups that are absolutely dying to find more professional programmers - at least in physics and astronomy, but probably in lots of disciplines. Feel free to email me if you'd like to talk more.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#66

Post by analog31 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #58

My quality of life as a senior staff eng depends on a couple things. Be curious what others would add: - *good manager*: at my company, I’m paired with a manager over a focus area. If they are good we'll form an effective partnership. They’ll help protect focus time, take on lots of planning and people management work, while I focus on the teams technical leadership and roadmap. -*Important company priority*: if what…

I'm senior staff, and I think you really nailed it. In my case I'm in a more exploratory research team, so a lot of my stuff doesn't make it to production, but I develop the techniques that will hopefully lead to the next generation of products.

Maybe I'd add a couple things:

* Always learning.

* Visibility and interaction with a broader range of people. For instance I work for a big multi-national, and I greatly enjoy cross site collaborations.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#67

Post by jerf »

bob1029 wrote: post #13

> An architect? A big part of my work is to improve systems and platforms. Listen to problems and propose solutions. But I don't feel like the guy who does a plan which must be blindly followed by others. I don't want to be a gatekeeper who says what can be used and what can't. The only area where I feel like you need to be super careful is around architecture. How many chefs can bake the same cake before you have a…

There's some sort of PE analog to the Brooks quote I've been working on, but I'm not quite there yet. Something like "Show me your solution and conceal the org chart, and I shall be mystified by your decisions. Show me the org chart and I won't need to see your solutions, they'll be obvious."

It's not quite as determinative, though. See the data and you often really don't need the code, but even understanding the org chart isn't enough. You also need history, and some other stuff.

Still, there is a general analog, in that it's a big danger in this role to think that it's about the produced architecture rather than the structure of the business, which "capturing in data and shared terminology" is a very good starting point for.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#68

Post by spenczar5 »

wfhbata wrote: post #43
spenczar5 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my job as a PE in AWS, and now work on writing performance-critical code in a scientific context. I couldn’t be happier with the decision. If you’re considering getting out, I would encourage it. Getting back to working on primarily technical problems, rather than social/communication scaling ones, has been great for my overall happiness.

Have you been able to maintain a similar level of compensation? I started my career in scientific computing, and was paid a pittance compared to what a PE is paid at a big tech company. I’m wondering if moving to scientific computing is a luxury afforded by putting in time at AWS.

The sibling comment pretty much nailed it. I saved well over 75% of my income as a PE and have more than enough money accumulated, so I'm not worried. My wife works as well, and even though we're in a pretty expensive area (Seattle) and have a child, we're very comfortable.

I get paid $110,000 per year, and have great benefits. It feels like plenty to me, even though I don't save nearly as much anymore.

I agree it's a luxury from putting in time at AWS. I don't think I'd be as comfortable (psychologically, anyway) if I had gone straight to academia.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#69

Post by tibiahurried »

Job titles are overrated. Often they are not an indication of skills and/or achievements, but rather political ability to networking and managing up in the company.

I have worked with Principals, Architects etc ... they were more an obstacle than facilitators. Most of them, if they were to interview, they wouldn't even be able to get a job as a senior engineer.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#70

Post by bradleyjg »

vp8989 wrote: post #27

I have personally not found the staff/principal level very enjoyable or satisfying. You end up being a hub for the larger team, helping everyone do their jobs. I'm not just referring to the coders. It's very draining and I resent that the industry classifies this type of work as technical IC work. A small subset of these higher "IC" roles do get to focus on technical IC work, but for most people a staff/principal rol…

At the end of the days it’s hard or impossible to be such a good programmer that you can create as much value through programming as someone else can through enabling several to many other very good programmers to do better work.

There may be some less than candid framing in calling the roles “IC” but it does make sense that all ladders lead to multiplicative contributions in one or another.

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