Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

blog.devgenius.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 176 posts

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#41

Post by PragmaticPulp »

pc86 wrote: post #28
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more generally: Job titles aren’t portable between companies in the tech industry. Don’t assume that they mean the same thing at every company. Don’t assume a company is underpaying people just because they’re giving out Principal Software Engineer titles. Principal Software Engineer at one company could just be the equivalent of Senior Software Engineer II at another company. On the hiring side, everyone knows th…

As someone whose first job title was "Assistant Director of IT," and who did nothing but write really bad PHP for a couple hours every day, this tracks with my experience. It also made interviewing harder because if you get a resume from someone with one job they've had for two years, and that job is Assistant Director, you're probably - rightfully - trashing that resume. I eventually learned to just change the title…

I had the inverse experience: I worked for a startup that gave literally everyone in the engineering department the same title of “Senior Software Engineer” in the HR system because they had one boilerplate offer letter used for everyone.

I was a manager-of-managers, but officially I was a “senior software engineer”. Burned me badly on a couple reference checks, until I specifically started explaining the situation during interviews.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#42

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

dkarl wrote: post #24
fasteddie31003 wrote: post #2

When my partner and I first meet we were both senior engineers at larger SF tech companies. Three years later she is a principle engineer and I stayed a senior engineer. She and I agree that everything past a senior engineer is political. She is much better and handling the complex social dynamics of the management class. It's kinda a game of finding the least common denominator that works best by not pissing off peo…

The political part is so important, and such a departure from solving technical problems. I feel like nothing in my life has prepared me for it, or maybe I just ignored everything that would have. I think there's a continuum of political savvy, though, where most developers have some level of it. For example, if one of your developers creates a new service using a technology that is new to the codebase, and half of t…

In my experience the issue experimented technical contributors have with politics is not savviness, it's managing frustration. Unless you enjoy playing politics for politics sake and value the grind of improving your position in the system, the mix of ineffective compromises and letting things rot because the blame will go the right way tends to wear you down in the long run.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#43

Post by ryanianian »

rwmj wrote: post #34

PSEs are really earning $800k per year?

At faang-level tech companies. Total comp. Base is likely 30% of that. By the time someone reaches principal they've likely been at the company for 5+ years which for many is long enough for equity to snowball such that previous years' grants are vesting at 5x their grant valuation. (Or if they're hired on as principal they're likely leaving similar comp on the table so hiring managers have to make up for it, usually with future-vesting equity of similar current valuations.)

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#44

Post by dkarl »

pc86 wrote: post #28
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or more generally: Job titles aren’t portable between companies in the tech industry. Don’t assume that they mean the same thing at every company. Don’t assume a company is underpaying people just because they’re giving out Principal Software Engineer titles. Principal Software Engineer at one company could just be the equivalent of Senior Software Engineer II at another company. On the hiring side, everyone knows th…

As someone whose first job title was "Assistant Director of IT," and who did nothing but write really bad PHP for a couple hours every day, this tracks with my experience. It also made interviewing harder because if you get a resume from someone with one job they've had for two years, and that job is Assistant Director, you're probably - rightfully - trashing that resume. I eventually learned to just change the title…

At one of my jobs, all the developers were given the title "Member of Technical Staff" because our boss had worked at a particle accelerator (he had a PhD in physics) and that's what the scientists running experiments had on their badges. He did it for morale, and it probably did make us feel a bit fancier while we were writing Grails and GWT code.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#46

Post by throwarayes »

Konnstann wrote: post #20
throwarayes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Title inflation is real. 2 years ago I was hired as Staff with pretty high bar to clear. This year I know a team where all the seniors complain they’re not Staff, and now half the team are Staff engs.

I was under the impression that Staff just meant you have some sort of leadership role, as opposed to just being an individual contributor. Is that not the case?

Yeah for us it means you have a team tech leadership role.

It’s hard to imagine a team where everyone is “leading”. Some people have to be doing.

TBH I doubt the actual work people are doing has changed. It’s more about status and salary.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#47

Post by hu3 »

amznbyebyebye wrote: post #25

Principal software engineer: the old grumpy guy who berates and borderline verbally abuses new/junior engineers and jeopardizes mental health across the org.

I'm sorry that was your experience.

I have met some amazing people that were tech leads during my career. Some of them titled as principal software engineers.

Sometimes it can be hard to find friendly and kind teams. But they do exist. I promise.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#49

Post by coldcode »

dkarl wrote: post #5

Always keep in mind that sometimes the "principal engineer" title is just a company's only way of hiring a senior engineer because their pay bands are so far below market rate. Don't let a description of a Google principal engineer scare you away from inquiring and applying for principal engineer positions at other companies. Source: have been that person.

Exactly it's just a job description and name. In my last job our org rarely promoted anyone technical (only managers and above) so almost everyone was either Lead Software Engineer, or Senior Software Engineer. Other orgs promoted everyone to the max no matter what they did - I knew a group where the lead was a Director but coded, and all of his reports where Principals; yet they did simpler work than anyone in our org did.
Post reply on HN