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My thoughts about the Principal role

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Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#81

Post by ska »

r00fus wrote: post #60
sgerenser wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one started at Amazon before 2016 or so, and put in a full 4 years to get 100% of their new hire stock vesting, they’d easily have more than $1 million just in stock. That plus all your other savings from the time you put in can make relaxing in a lower paid role for the next N years until you’re ready to retire an attractive proposition.

Depending on where you live (and whether you own property) that may not be a lot if you are the only breadwinner with a family to raise.

> epending on where you live (and whether you own property)

No, it's a lot for 4-5 years anywhere. This is on top of a pretty decent salary. For most working folk, putting this much aside in cash-equivalent over entire career is hard.

GP is talking about going from a high base salary to decent base salary, while using the extra comp (estimated here at approx 1mm) to smooth the impact of the drop in base. This is very manageable.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#82

Post by andrey_utkin »

matthias509 wrote: post #74
alistairSH wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, I’m looking at how my principals are helping the team move past big hurdles. Their ability to write code is a given, and they still do it (though not as much as they did, or at least not the same type of code). But are they mentoring and pair-programming with junior team members? Can they take what the BA/PM ask and turn it into meaningful technical tasks (that’s part of my job too - I try to lead that…

This. If I’m not helping junior devs get their work done, I am failing as a PE.

Helping is activity, how do you evaluate the outcomes?

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#83

Post by wikibob »

spenczar5 wrote: post #64
wikibob wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did that decision impact you financially? Were you able to get something in a similar range as what levels.fyi lists for an Amazon Principle Engineer ($640,000 [0])? Or did you become financially independent from the Amazon comp which allowed you to not care about the new lower salary? [0] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi...

I saved most of what I made from the Amazon comp, and now have more than enough to feel comfortable. Now, I get $110,000 per year. That's plenty. I have a family, but my wife works too in tech and has a good income. The marginal value of the extra income from working in big tech just wasn't worth it for me.

Thanks for the reply!

If you had it to do over again, would you chose to go into the area that you’re especially interested in and sacrifice ever getting the high FAANG comp?

Or do you feel that having that savings invested has given you the long term security to feel comfortable, but perhaps if you’d made ~80% less over your career you’d be less satisfied?

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#84

Post by kstrauser »

vp8989 wrote: post #27

I have personally not found the staff/principal level very enjoyable or satisfying. You end up being a hub for the larger team, helping everyone do their jobs. I'm not just referring to the coders. It's very draining and I resent that the industry classifies this type of work as technical IC work. A small subset of these higher "IC" roles do get to focus on technical IC work, but for most people a staff/principal rol…

My friend explained it this way: up through senior, you’re concentrating on making yourself and later your team more efficient. As you transition through to staff/principal, you’re working to make your department and whole company more efficient. Sometimes that means unblocking someone so their work can continue. Other times that means getting two teams together to work out their differences. Even if you’re not getting your hands dirty as often, you’re making a much bigger difference than you would if you were spending all day looking at code.

Reframing it that way made a huge difference for me. The things I’d thought of as chores, or necessary evils, are really my opportunity to use the knowledge I’ve accumulated to make whole teams of people work better. That’s pretty cool.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#85

Post by antonmry »

vii wrote: post #39

Some of this advice is great, like getting out of the way, guiding people with how to think about trade-offs and doing daily coding. But it doesn't feel like 'Principal' level advice, at least in terms of Big Tech and the blog notes the author isn't sure what the distinction is with Staff. The author complains that it's hard to be in the critical path at a senior level. This lacks self-awareness. It's always hard to…

Interesting feedback, thanks! What I describe in the article are the challenges of the role based in my experience. What you describe it's the business as usual work. Innovation, deliver and push key initiatives, etc. are the reason to be promoted to Principal in first place. They are important but they aren't what I find more challenging in the role.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#86

Post by baron_harkonnen »

wfhbata wrote: post #43
spenczar5 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit my job as a PE in AWS, and now work on writing performance-critical code in a scientific context. I couldn’t be happier with the decision. If you’re considering getting out, I would encourage it. Getting back to working on primarily technical problems, rather than social/communication scaling ones, has been great for my overall happiness.

Have you been able to maintain a similar level of compensation? I started my career in scientific computing, and was paid a pittance compared to what a PE is paid at a big tech company. I’m wondering if moving to scientific computing is a luxury afforded by putting in time at AWS.

It's still quite strange to me that we're at a point in tech where technical skill becomes a penalty.

This is not to say that non-technical skills are not important and often more important, but for both myself and friends "getting paid well" and "working on hard problems" have become conflicting goals.

There was a brief while, at the beginning of our current tech boom where strong technical skills were extremely valuable. What initially attracted me to software was hanging out with some absolutely brilliant software folks working on very hard problems, and getting paid better than anyone else I knew.

I'm perpetually disappointed that after many, many years of honing my technical skills I find that if I want to use them 9-5 I have to choose to be paid considerably less, and scour far and wide to find those jobs. I've now decided that it's best to treat my passion for technical problems the same way I would any other non-work related hobby. Similar to the way that being an avid reader and book lover is nice, but ultimately not that important if you want to work at Barnes and Noble selling books.

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#87

Post by lumost »

spenczar5 wrote: post #68
wfhbata wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been able to maintain a similar level of compensation? I started my career in scientific computing, and was paid a pittance compared to what a PE is paid at a big tech company. I’m wondering if moving to scientific computing is a luxury afforded by putting in time at AWS.

The sibling comment pretty much nailed it. I saved well over 75% of my income as a PE and have more than enough money accumulated, so I'm not worried. My wife works as well, and even though we're in a pretty expensive area (Seattle) and have a child, we're very comfortable. I get paid $110,000 per year, and have great benefits. It feels like plenty to me, even though I don't save nearly as much anymore. I agree it's…

Curious what a role in non-academic scientific computing looks like. How did you get into the field? what kind of companies have this kind of role?

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#88

Post by jaredsohn »

tchalla wrote: post #46
phamilton wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a PE role, and I have to tell myself every day not to go do the POC because that's not how I can maximize my impact. If someone else can do that work, I'm going to try and lean on them. Strategy is hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. I am unable to make progress on strategy when I'm deep in tactical work. I do jump in when needed, but every time I get my hands dirty I fall behind on strategy. Your PE…

> I have to tell myself every day not to go do the POC What is a "POC"? Side Rant : It's really helpful if an acronym is at least expanded in the first use. I don't find the acronym in the article or the parent comment. I am not sure why and how this is a norm but it's frustrating as someone who wants to understand a conversation.

If anyone has a hard time empathizing with unexplained acronyms, read a bit of https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/. I think the jargon is okay for the nature of that community (taking advantage of credit card sign up bonuses) but following discussion there can be really confusing until acclimated.

Example sentence: "CSR CL can be lowered. Need $5k CL to PC it to most cards, $10k to PC a(nother) card to CSR. Recon might only be able to drop it to $5k, you might have to SM to go lower than that."

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#89

Post by wheelinsupial »

andrey_utkin wrote: post #82
matthias509 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. If I’m not helping junior devs get their work done, I am failing as a PE.

Helping is activity, how do you evaluate the outcomes?

Where I work scrum masters are supposed to “help teams improve”. That’s measured, in one way, by looking at the current rate of performance of a team and projecting it out. Then a scrum master needs to improve the team’s performance by some amount that exceeds the cost of having them there.

Some examples, number of on time deployments, number of story points, number of bugs... I’m not saying this is perfect, but that’s how some people are measuring.

So if a PE is responsible for improving juniors, I suppose a PE can be judged on the size and complexity of projects their juniors are able to take on. Maybe the time to promotion and number of juniors getting promoted?

Re: My thoughts about the Principal role

#90

Post by redisman »

sys_64738 wrote: post #77

An IC4 role is generally one where you can give a problem to the IC4 and have them figure out how to break it into work and get things done. They don't need hand holding like junior engineers but they also know how to get input from experienced peers and make informed decisions. You're not payed to solve run of the mill problems at this level but to leverage your experience and intuition. Collaboration is critical.

I’m confused - you’re describing a Sr Engineer
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