Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I find it amusing how people take this 'leveling game' at big companies so seriously. It has a huge payoff (think 7 figure TC/year for principal+ at big tech), with little personal risk required. It's no wonder people take it so seriously.
At higher levels or extremely specialized roles perhaps. But your typical big tech “principal” IC isn’t consistently making 7 figures.
Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
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Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#72There was a time when the L7+ principal IC at Amazon/AWS were rockstars in our industry that represented the pinnacle of one’s career. It’s been sad to watch the talent exodus there on my LinkedIn these last 12+ months as these folks flee the ship for elsewhere. So much experience and knowledge just gone and the bar for L7+ with those left has tumbled off a cliff.
Nicely written up in this recent Register article: https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/aws_outage_amazon_bra...
>Amazon brain drain finally sent AWS down the spout
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#73Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#74Are you an individual contributor if the vast majority of your work isn’t individual contribution? And you’re not a “working-level” IC? God I hate all this big corporate hierarchy terminology. Along with all the pontification about what a “staff” or “principal” or “senior” really is , as if the terms have (or can have!) a stable meaning that we definitely agree upon enough for this all to make sense.
I dislike the term "IC" too but it does at least have a stable meaning in most companies: it means you don't have direct reports in a managerial capacity.
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#75I find it a bit strange when people write about themselves in third person on their own website (see footer and about). Anyway, the article seems very Amazon centric since I have no idea what an L6 or an L7 is. I get that they’re career ladder steps but that’s it. And having testimonials about yourself on your own website… The whole website feels like I clicked on an Ad for a person.
If I’m understanding right, he has a side hustle as a public speaker. So the website is an ad for him.
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some companies suck at promoting the right people, but a good principal engineer is the 10x person, or someone who makes several teams more effective by helping them figure out the bigger technical issues. If you think management is like 1x talent and effort, you should try management for a bit.
I have. It's more stressful. But it's still 1x talent and 1x effort. Anyone can do it, it's just harder in the same way being a garbage man is hard. 10x engineers don't need to be principals. The idea behind principals is that they don't do any engineering. They leverage the work of others to become 10x. It's very much considered a "leadership" or management role overall. A 10x engineer is usually literally a person…
I've seen zero people become 10x because of AI. Conservatively it seems closer to ±0.5x and it takes a while to figure out if it's + or -
I didn't understand the point of managers until I got a good one. Perhaps you've just been unlucky
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#77I find it a bit strange when people write about themselves in third person on their own website (see footer and about). Anyway, the article seems very Amazon centric since I have no idea what an L6 or an L7 is. I get that they’re career ladder steps but that’s it. And having testimonials about yourself on your own website… The whole website feels like I clicked on an Ad for a person.
L6 is a senior engineer - typically effecting change and setting direction within a development team (or small group of related teams)
L7 is a principal engineer - typically effecting change at org level which will impact many teams
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#78I find it a bit strange when people write about themselves in third person on their own website (see footer and about). Anyway, the article seems very Amazon centric since I have no idea what an L6 or an L7 is. I get that they’re career ladder steps but that’s it. And having testimonials about yourself on your own website… The whole website feels like I clicked on an Ad for a person.
That's why I flagged it and encourage you to flag it too. Let's keep this self-aggrandizing slop off of HN.
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#79There was a time when the L7+ principal IC at Amazon/AWS were rockstars in our industry that represented the pinnacle of one’s career. It’s been sad to watch the talent exodus there on my LinkedIn these last 12+ months as these folks flee the ship for elsewhere. So much experience and knowledge just gone and the bar for L7+ with those left has tumbled off a cliff.
Right, now I see Amazon experience as probably a negative - its not a sign of strength.
Re: Advice for new principal tech ICs (i.e., notes to myself)
#80I find it a bit strange when people write about themselves in third person on their own website (see footer and about). Anyway, the article seems very Amazon centric since I have no idea what an L6 or an L7 is. I get that they’re career ladder steps but that’s it. And having testimonials about yourself on your own website… The whole website feels like I clicked on an Ad for a person.
[flagged]
Ha, this is true. I thought the post was quite useful beyond getting the author’s name out there.
It can get much more navel-gazing than this, such as the posts by 24yos who insist they finally figured out what life is about after working at a startup for 3 years. :)