The principal is the one with bus factor 1
What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
21–30 of 176 posts
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#22The pay for principal SWE can get up to $1m+ (at large sv tech companies, or even at startups assuming their equity pans out).
That $800k number is more accurate for staff/senior staff.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#23Always 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'm stuck inside a 5000 person IT company hiding inside a much larger consumer product company, and 3/5 of us are all 'principal' engineers by title. This includes a bevy of old timers who exist just to run a few ancient shell scripts and otherwise keep a chair warm. Although they are shrinking quickly, they still vastly outnumber us coming in from the software industry. There is no title above principal here; we are…
> My department wont mint a new one, but only hire outsiders already at the title.
Yikes, that sucks.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#24When 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 the senior developers say, "Ugh! I'm not touching that. It's just showing off his big brain. I'm not wasting my time figuring out that unnecessary academic crap," you can understand how that was a failure even if a purely technical evaluation concluded that the learning curve was reasonable and the benefits outweighed the effort required. Before committing to the technology, it was necessary to introduce the idea in a way that got the senior devs to buy in, and if you can't accomplish that, you can't use the technology at all, because it's going to create morale and social problems as well a creating an isolated service that few people will work on.
That's a basic level of political savvy I think most people can relate to, so, if you can understand that much, you have a base to build on.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#25Principal software engineer: the old grumpy guy who berates and borderline verbally abuses new/junior engineers and jeopardizes mental health across the org.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#26Always 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.
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.
Yes because everyone is resigning. L+1 today is easily what L was 2-3 years ago.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#27I've been a "Principal Engineer" at a large software company and I feel like I embodied each of those archetypes at various points. At various points I was neck deep in critical code, doing the dog and pony show at the executive level, coordinating with other engineering teams and several product managers, and generally doing all of things required to keep pushing something forward.
My relationship with my manager was much more of a peer partnership than manager/IC. I let my manager know what I was up to, progress on things, and any challenges that needed help. The latter bucket was usually empty, but occasionally some cross-org priorities need to be clarified and sorted out.
As others have noted, it really varies between companies, but the main difference between Senior/Staff and Principal is that the latter can be a much more "people" oriented role. You still own and carry the technical vision, but you increasingly interact with non-technical people to enable it and to make it happen.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#28Always 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.
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 but then explain on first contact that my actual title was different, it just didn't bear any relation to what I was actually doing.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#29When 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…
Another way to look at it is you are expected to include business factors into your decision making. Sometimes the most optimal engineering solution is not the most optimal business solution. Politics can definitely be a factor, but being able explain clearly why doing something helps the business can be a big part of making the jump to more senior roles.
Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?
#30Earlier 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?
IC just means you don't have reports, and neither Staff nor Principal roles typically have reports.