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What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

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Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#101

Post by SavantIdiot »

xxpor wrote: post #93
SavantIdiot wrote: post #80

> To achieve the “org-level” impact, principal engineers need to be very selective on what to work on and use as much leverage as they can. For example, to set them up for success and maximize their influence, a principal engineer usually directly reports to a “director-level” engineering leader. Whoa, that is a cynical take and smells a little of sour grapes. I 100% agree that the PE title is abused both out of nepo…

>However, it is unlikely you would be able to say to a VP or GM, "Hey, I want to work on THAT project, not this crap one you stuck me on, because I want more visibility for promotion!" I think this is very dependent on the incentives that are set up for the GM. If they're being judged on how they're developing their org, and number of promotions is looked at, now they may agree with you that the non-crap thing is the…

This is what I was referring to with site-level bias. I've seen certain sites brag about their # of principal engineers. Ultimately sites are handed jobs based on their past performance, but this abuse of the system remains. I'm being a little naive, but that's just me, and these abuses aren't that frequent.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#102

Post by mathgladiator »

I'm a principal engineer for the next 3.5 days, and then I retire.

The key element is that you are half technical and other half people. You could say the other half is political, but that's just what happens when you get a bunch of people together. The key is that larger companies are hard to steer. You can't have N engineers in N directions, and you need to point them in direction.

The way I look at it from a technical perspective is ensuring that the game being played is winnable. Is the project going to work? Or, is this a death march waiting to happen? Do people know what they need to do? Do they have the tools and knowledge? Are stake-holders bought into the picture? Is funding going to endure the march?

The title is entirely useless if you are not in a large organization. Turning the ship even 1 degree is a lot of talking and organizing... Meh...

I like to build, but I'm happy to never build a pyramid again.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#103

Post by destitude »

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.

I've seen this exactly. Someone at my former company was a Principal engineer but when they left to go to Netflix they were then just a Sr. Engineer. They definitely were not Principal engineer material so think it was all to appease the pay-band gods.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#104

Post by vp8989 »

sumtechguy wrote: post #66
opportune wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this. Principal means something vastly different between Microsoft and Google (where at Microsoft it means “Staff”). I even got recruiting emails from some not-popular SV firms for “Principal software engineer” when I had 3 years of experience.

One company out there 'staff' is entry level. Whereas in all the companies I worked at 'staff' was a very prized title to have. Another company I worked at my title was basically just some random bits of roman numerals and something that sounded vaguely like a engineer. I usually just put sr software engineer/developer depending on the company and role.

I "normalize" my previous titles to whatever pattern/scheme my current company uses. It more clearly demonstrates the career progression on your resume and you typically only get a reference check at your previous employer so putting an "inaccurate" title for jobs older than that is unlikely to matter. Obviously don't inflate the titles.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#106

Post by xmprt »

makecheck wrote: post #92

Having been at several companies, I think I was happiest about my career when I didn’t have a fancy title and did not really know anyone else’s either (aside from obvious managers). It was nicer just knowing who’s in charge of what thing , and seeing your influence grow as you are trusted with more things . When I see titles, it just makes unhelpful thoughts enter my head, like: are all these people “at my level” rea…

On the flip side, having a title is a good way to know if you're being compensated appropriately. If you see someone 2 levels above you working on much less impactful projects then perhaps it's time to have a conversation with your manager about pay or time to start looking for new jobs.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#107

Post by ghaff »

pradn wrote: post #98
makecheck wrote: post #92

Having been at several companies, I think I was happiest about my career when I didn’t have a fancy title and did not really know anyone else’s either (aside from obvious managers). It was nicer just knowing who’s in charge of what thing , and seeing your influence grow as you are trusted with more things . When I see titles, it just makes unhelpful thoughts enter my head, like: are all these people “at my level” rea…

You hit the nail on the head. It was very different coming from Microsoft, where people's title and level (about one-two levels corresponded to a particular title) were visible in every chat dialog, to Google where you can edit your title to anything you want and levels can be seen only by going to a tool and looking it up specifically.

At my current company, where I've been for over ten years, I've always just made up a title to match my current focus/what seemed "fresh." My original external title that was made up to hire me didn't actually make a lot of sense and differed from the internal HR title anyway.

Ended up doing something similar in my original tech job as well. I'm not sure I've ever really used my official HR title and would probably have to look it up to be sure I'm remembering it correctly.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#108

Post by decodebytes »

hackingforfun wrote: post #65

For anyone who is a Principal Engineer at a FAANG, what do you do day to day? I'm a Principal Engineer, not at a FAANG, and that mostly means i'm an expert at what I do and know the product inside and out, and I spend a good amount of time coding. I do also help others, answer questions, and deal with complex problems. I'd say I do 80% coding and 20% meetings / other things. I interviewed somewhere else and they want…

I am happy to be open here if it helps others. I am not with a FAANG, I am employed by Red Hat. My title is Senior Principal Software Engineer. At Red Hat it goes Software Engineer -> Senior Software Engineer -> Principal Software Engineer -> Senior Principal Software Engineer -> Distinguished Engineer.

My main duties are that I lead a team of 7 engineers and we all work on open source security projects.

My day is a mix of half coding / half meetings. I am UK based, so my mornings are nice and free (while the US sleeps) and then around 2pm I have a large chunk of meetings. The meetings are mostly with my team, senior management, and open source community meetings.

For me being a Principal is a much more than just coding prowess. You also need good 'soft skills'. You need to mentor engineers and think about their growth. Make sure they are challenged enough to grow, but not so much that they end up stressed and out of kilt. You need to be able to communicate with not just other software engineers, but also product managers, directly with customers and many other verticals within a business.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#109

Post by ghaff »

neilv wrote: post #95
dkarl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've always thought of "Member of Technical Staff" as a Bell Labs thing. I almost did it at my last startup, to signal the egalitarian, cooperative engineering culture that I intended. One of the concerns was that it could hurt people's career mobility out (and willingness to join, since the startup was unlikely to be the engineer's home for the next few decades until retirement). I think it works easily when your or…

I think it's sort of a labs (whether national labs or more broadly) thing. I have a good friend who works for one of the national labs subcontractors and they use the technical staff terminology.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#110

Post by huetius »

727374 wrote: post #90

My definition is "Finds and creates the most valuable work for other engineers to do." I really started to see the value once I moved from Principal to Manager. All of a sudden I was busy with boring manager stuff and needed an IC who could get deep into the details of our initiatives and make sure everyone's efforts were lining up. You don't need the title of Principal to do this role, of course, but ICs who see the…

I like this definition, even if it overlaps with the PM role. In effective teams I’ve been part of, the PM and engineering leads help each other winnow down the work, with the PM making the final call for priority (except in circumstances where that doesn’t make sense).
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