What does a Principal Software Engineer do? • Hacker News Board

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#141

Post by berto4 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

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 feel like a lot of folks don't care for the title as much as the monetary incentives and perceived "power" that comes with it.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#142

Post by pradn » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

zhengyi13 wrote: post #134

pradn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've personally set my title to "Shennanigans Regularly Effected". Also, lots of folk deliberately opt out of level visibility, too.

I didn't know you could opt out of level visibility!

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#143

Post by eadmund » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #122

xmprt wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have found the same thing over the years. A lot of times the folks who 'just don't do anything' and 'just don't understand' were doing plenty and understood plenty, I just was too immature to get that at the time.

Not 100% always, mind you, but way more often than not.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#144

Post by eadmund » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

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.

Are there many folks who care more for a title than compensation? Granted, a higher title might help one win more compensation when negotiating one's next job, but fundamentally one must back that up. I mean, you could hire me as a principal engineer for $100,000 today and I could hope I can get hired as a distinguished engineer for $800,000 next year, but somehow I don't think anyone with that much money to spend is going to make that terrible of a mistake.

Right? Because if not, I need to have a discussion about titles!

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#145

Post by akiselev » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 10:58 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #132

CodeMage wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It doesn't make you a bad engineer, but it does, generally, put a ceiling on the value you are able to provide to the company. Individual contributors can only get so much done in a given amount of time, and over a long enough time scale, are generally interchangeable with one another. Sure, you might have some specialized knowledge or understand system X better than anybody else, but there's diminishing returns on t…

> it eventually stops being about your direct technical contributions and about your ability to multiply the value of everybody under you in your org.

I thought that was the whole point of the IC track: putting a technical person into a role where they can be a multiplier without burdening them with management responsibilities.

Every staff/principle/architect IC I've ever worked with has had that kind of positive effect on the teams around them. Their schedules were indistinguishable from most managers, except they met mostly one on one and they could get a senior engineer's worth of work (impact wise) done in between the meetings instead of paying the management overhead.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#146

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 11:00 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#147

Post by Apofis » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

hideo wrote: post #119

Apofis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant I love the way you phrased it. A lot of programmers ignore the fact that they're serving a business function.

Thanks :) It does feel like some folks ignore the business side of things but I think I enjoy being a part of the larger picture. It's definitely not for everyone. I know several people who are personally happy and have had WILDLY successful careers being hands-on tech specialists and ignoring the business side. It's great that it works for them.

Not everyone can do the same thing over and over again their whole life. Soon, I'm going to scream if I have to build another website or app... thankfully I'm making a massive career shift into Aerospace.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#148

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 11:02 PM UTC

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?

[deleted]

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#149

Post by spydum » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 11:05 PM UTC

LargeWu wrote: post #132

CodeMage wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It doesn't make you a bad engineer, but it does, generally, put a ceiling on the value you are able to provide to the company. Individual contributors can only get so much done in a given amount of time, and over a long enough time scale, are generally interchangeable with one another. Sure, you might have some specialized knowledge or understand system X better than anybody else, but there's diminishing returns on t…

Agree with this pretty strongly. However there is something I've observed: org multipliers can exist without managing people. HR generally doesnt know what to do with them. It's almost unreasonable to call them ICs, but there you have it.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#150

Post by monkeybutton » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

CodeMage wrote: post #127

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?

What will you do when you're in your 50s? I've seen what happens to older developers, they're one layoff from being totally screwed. Ageism is a real problem in the industry and it motivates me to keep advancing.