Don't become an engineering manager • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#61

Post by pkaler » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:46 PM UTC

halper wrote: post #4

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…

As others have said, levels and titles are generally for compensation and performance reviews. Each company has their own bespoke ladder but it generally maps to:

  - L1: Intern with undergrad degree
  - L2: Intern with graduate degree
  - L3: Junior
  - L4: Intermediate
  - L5: Senior
  - L6: Staff
  - L7: Senior Staff
  - L8: Principal
  - L9: Distinguished
  - L10: Fellow

Each company has their own numbers and names but it generally progresses like that. Impact and scope scales as you head up the ladder.

L5 or Senior is usually considered a “terminal” role. That means all engineers should be able to get to this role. And people without the headroom get managed out if they can’t get to L5.

Staff+ is usually “special”. It means that people count on you to drive initiatives and you have something special other than just writing code. You are able to make product and business impact.

Distinguished and Fellow are very rare. Large FAANG companies will only have a handful of these engineers. It means you’ve made industry-wide impact like inventing map-reduce or DynamoDB or Kubernetes.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#62

Post by Balgair » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:52 PM UTC

halper wrote: post #4

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…

Rant:

I was a systems engineer for a while there.

But not a pure S/W one. Like an actual engineer with nuts and bolts and pneumatics and amps and bolts and the like. That was the title at many many companies, it was a pretty rigid one too, despite the job function being quite jack of all trades.

But then tech decided that they wanted to use Systems Engineer too. The reasons weren't bad, I guess.

But then trying to find a job in my version of the role was near impossible on any job site.

Unix this, Windows that. Sure, I used Unix systems for my job too, little servers for controlling some mechanical systems. Not like huge racks that served up billions of requests.

And then I'd get the job spam too, as I matched some keyword threshold for the S/W type systems engineer. Always a entry level role through.

Gah! Why couldn't S/W take the title of Unix Server Engineer, or Python Integration Engineer or something just a tad more specific and not bleeding all over my discipline?

Okay, whew, rant over

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#63

Post by Aurornis » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

halper wrote: post #4

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…

> that it really depends on the organisation.

This is entirely it. Titles should be consistently ordered within an organization, but they are not portable from one organization to another.

This is a lesson I’ve had to explain over and over to people at the beginning of their careers. I’ve been asked for advice about which offer to take from people thinking about leaving 10s of thousands of dollars on the table because another company will give them a Senior Engineer title and they think that’s important.

When hiring, titles are basically ignored unless the person is coming from a company like Microsoft or Google where their leveling system is publicly known.

I’ve interviewed so many “Prinicpal Staff Engineers” or even “CTO” people who would barely qualify as senior engineers at an average company. I’ve also interviewed “Senior Software Engineers” who had more experience than knowledge than anyone on our teams (and that’s saying a lot!)

Hiring managers know this, but it’s not obvious if you haven’t done a lot of hiring or worked at a lot of different companies.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#64

Post by temp8830 » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:54 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #56

temp8830 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article periodically surfaces in some shape or form. There's this idea that there's a "dual ladder", and the IC ladder offers just as much respect and compensation as the management one. This is a lie, and the sooner we stop telling it to the young generation - the better. Human societies have always rewarded and valued those who built hierarchies more than those who built things. If you focus on building a thin…

> There's this idea that there's a "dual ladder", and the IC ladder offers just as much respect and compensation as the management one It is not a lie. It is true IF you live and work in the Bay Area, Seattle, and TLV - which represent the bulk of tech industry employment. Companies where the underlying stack is a revenue generator and not a cost center are companies where these kinds of dual tracks exist, but these…

Sorry, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. The ladders are simply not comparable, even in the Bay Area. Sure, at the entry point where one transfers from the IC ladder to management compensation can even drop. However, that's the bottom rung - and one typically can't get straight into management as a new grad. The management ladder goes higher.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#65

Post by siliconc0w » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

My experience is that the 'separate but equal' dual engineering track is largely a myth and that if you want advancement, the manager track is a much more viable track. Even with some of the recent flattening, there are still far more higher level roles for management than ICs. They are also given far more visibility and access inside the company which is extremely valuable in a large org. It also seems a good choice if you're not very good - I've seen bad managers hang around far longer than bad engineers.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#66

Post by neogodless » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:55 PM UTC

mystraline wrote: post #51

Flagging due to being an advert in disguise.

> Here are the main arguments from our conversation:

> Thanks Unblocked for supporting today’s article!

> AI coding tools are fast, capable, and completely context-blind. Even with rules, skills, and MCP connections, they generate code that misses your conventions, ignores past decisions, and breaks patterns. You end up paying for that gap in rework and tokens.

> Unblocked changes the economics.

Yeah I was reading through this going... huh? This is the same font and layout as the article. uBlock let this slip through. Maybe there's good content here, and maybe they need advertisements to pay the bills (as a well-paid Engineering Manager...) but I couldn't finish the article knowing that it was deceptively formatted.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#67

Post by crystal_revenge » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

jjfoooo4 wrote: post #60

jghn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They matter within a company for the reasons you cite. They mostly don't matter between companies however.

Why do you think that? Senior, staff, principle levels are pretty standard across the industry, even if some companies call them different things

I'm guessing you've only worked at very large companies, specifically tech companies then?

I've worked at pretty much every size company imaginable.As the top post pointed out, these titles are meaningless across smaller companies. I've been at startups where nobody had titles at all, I've small companies where anyone remotely senior as a principal. I've also worked at large non-tech companies with only 3 levels for IC, after that you were expected to transition to management.

Large, tech companies have some degree they can be compared but what these titles mean from company to company is pretty meaningless.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#68

Post by jedberg » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

Not sure I agree (and I made the jump from IC to management).

Look at the parallel tracks. A VP is the same level as a distinguished engineer, roughly. To be a VP, you have to be a great manager and got lucky with a few big projects.

To be a DE, you basically have to be famous within the industry. And when I look at a large tech company, while there aren't a lot of VPs, usually the number of DEs is countable on one hand (or maybe two).

They are very different skill sets. You shouldn't choose your role based on money or career progression, you should choose based on what you love to do, because especially in this world of AI replacing all the "boring" work, the only people who will be left will be the ones passionate about what they are doing.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#69

Post by madhadron » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

pkaler wrote: post #61

halper wrote: post #4

I cannot be alone in feeling that titles (within "tech" in particular) are almost completely arbitrary? What constitutes a "senior", "lead", "principal" and "staff" X, respectively, has so much overlap that it really depends on the organisation. I myself have been called all of those things, but have honestly not been able to tell the difference: in some cases, I have had much more responsibility as a "senior backend…

As others have said, levels and titles are generally for compensation and performance reviews. Each company has their own bespoke ladder but it generally maps to: - L1: Intern with undergrad degree - L2: Intern with graduate degree - L3: Junior - L4: Intermediate - L5: Senior - L6: Staff - L7: Senior Staff - L8: Principal - L9: Distinguished - L10: Fellow Each company has their own numbers and names but it generally…

You're describing a very small number of companies that all copied each other's systems. The idea of a terminal role, for example, is pure Facebook. These do not apply in general across the industry except where managers from those small number of companies came in and shoved them in before they were fired.

Re: Don't become an engineering manager

#70

Post by tewr » Tue, Mar 03, 2026, 5:09 PM UTC

There is so much going on in the industry right now that it is not fun to be an EM with rusty tech skills. However, the claim that staff engineers are more in demand is unsubstantiated. Hiring will slow to a crawl as everyone is watching to see where this is going. The EM role is not being replaced as fast by agents as much as the IC role, simply because EMs don't have as much to gain from agents yet.