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What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

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Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#121

Post by trgn »

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…

That's all true, and yet, and yet.

> and seeing your influence grow as you are trusted with more things.

That's the ideal scenario, that you earn the esteem and trust of your peers because the work you do speaks for itself.

The flipside with this is, this process takes time. It really takes years. Sometimes there will not be that time. You are a new hire brought in to do a high-impact thing; or a high-impact project crosses across the entire organization where suddenly all participants are relative stranger; or the team you worked in was of very low external visibility but a mentor recognized your potential and pulled you out to help recalibrate a different but malfunctioning team, etc...

Then titles are important. It is very unfortunate that we are very cynical of titles, because, in well-run organizations, they are meaningful, and in fact, should be meaningful. Imagine in the military if every officer had to prove themselves over and over again. It's unworkable.

At some point, larger organizations will need to grant leverage to a technical individual. A title helps with providing that.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#122

Post by kstrauser »

xmprt wrote: post #106
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.

On a side note, I use to see people with higher titles than mine not visibly doing as much as me, and found it grating. Now I have one of those titles, and I'm working harder than before, but a lot of it is with vendors, contractors, and overseeing projects. To ICs inside a particular project, it probably likes like I'm not doing much of anything. It changed my outlook on such things a lot.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#123

Post by posharma »

mathgladiator wrote: post #102

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 techn…

Would it be fair to say that half of the job is project/program management?

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#124

Post by kstrauser »

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'd fire that person immediately. No one's so valuable that they get to poison the work environment.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#125

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

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…

I hadn't thought about it in this context before, but I used to train Kendo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendo), a Japanese martial art, a long time ago. One interesting thing is that Kendo doesn't have belts like most other martial arts, the principle being that seeing the color of someone's belt causes you to prejudge their ability. Ideally, you should only know how good they are by actually training/fighting with them.

I've been very disappointed by comparing people's titles with their actual technical ability -- somehow it never seems to be the case that the ability outstrips the title.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#126

Post by vp8989 »

willob33 wrote: post #14
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…

Life is a human communication game first, as the “best system” we’ve socially engineered is externalized support towards common goals. It’s not science or engineering; it’s sympatico. The problems we’re solving at these jobs (I reserve work for its meaning in physical systems, jobs/career for you know), are ostensibly people problems. So the decisions I make are optimized for that. I don’t call it politically optimal…

Nice post, I think "software engineering" is slowly becoming yet another "bullshit job".

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#127

Post by CodeMage »

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…

I'm waiting to find a place that won't push me to keep advancing up the career ladder, without leaving my salary lagging behind the rising cost of living.

Does having limited ambition make you a bad dev/engineer, if you keep learning new things and contributing quality code at your current level of responsibility?

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#128

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

posharma wrote: post #123
mathgladiator wrote: post #102

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 techn…

Would it be fair to say that half of the job is project/program management?

Not in my experience: there are typically specific project and program managers. The job of the Staff/Principal Engineer is usually to perform some kind of technical leadership: guiding code reviews, mentoring, architectural or technology guidance (what framework should use use?), remember the lessons learned from previous projects, and also serve as a liaison between the technical and non-technical departments in a company.

And in most cases, that's in addition to writing code. One of my last job descriptions as a Staff Engineer had me writing code about 10% of the time :-(

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#129

Post by [deleted] »

bluGill wrote: post #72
MillenialMan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of titles in tech confer more prestige than deserved, because there's no downside to a company handing them out like candy. I don't look at it as a portability issue, the incentive isn't to be accurate to begin with. Inflated seniority is just a perk they can offer that doesn't cost them any money, so everyone offers it. Titles across the industry are meaningless unless you're calibrated to that com…

There are only a few titles that mean anything, and normally it isn't what you think. Legal at a bank only a vice president or higher can make some loan decisions. Thus if you go to a large chain bank to get a mortgage you will talk to a vice president. Their title must be vice president, but they doesn't make a lot of money, and don't have much power other than the ability to give you a mortgage. Last time I posted…

[deleted]

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#130

Post by JJMcJ »

bluGill wrote: post #73
vultour wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vice Presidents at large financial institutions are a joke. Coming from any other industry you'd think it's some sort of executive position. Nope, just a random senior software engineer 8 levels down on the corporate ladder. To be fair the first 6 levels (all the way to the CEO) are all "Managing Directors".

Vice president at financial institutions have legal meaning. Thus a lot of people need to be a vice president just to legally do their job.

Certain documents must be signed by an officer of the company. So many become vice presidents, to have that ability.

Then other people of the same rank become vice presidents.

At one bank anyone at director level (manager of managers) was a VP, for example.

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