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What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

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Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#81

Post by topkai22 »

hackingforfun wrote: post #65

For anyone who is a Principal Engineer at a FAANG, what do you do day to day? I'm a Principal Engineer, not at a FAANG, and that mostly means i'm an expert at what I do and know the product inside and out, and I spend a good amount of time coding. I do also help others, answer questions, and deal with complex problems. I'd say I do 80% coding and 20% meetings / other things. I interviewed somewhere else and they want…

Staff/principal level here. I accelerate my team. Sometimes that involves writing code, sometimes that involves teaching/mentoring others, sometimes it means improving our tools and processes, sometimes it involves hammer out our architecture and security approach, and sometimes it involves figuring out what baroque process I need to go through in order to get legal’s approval to launch our new product. I make sure almost all of what I do is well documented and communicated to the rest of my team.

The three rough metrics I’ve heard for how staff/principals are evaluated are “creating clarity”, “impact”, and “leadership.” Those metrics are all very difficult to perform on if I were focused on my code related output as an individual, although there are people who make and achieve within that level in my company who do more straight up coding then I do. The important thing is good judgement on where to spend your time to have the most impact.

If you wanted me to put numbers on it, I’d say my time is probably 25% coding, 20% meetings, 20% working on infrastructure and tools, 20% documenting/communicating, and 15% mentoring/recruiting.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#82

Post by synergy20 »

They write specs, High level design with lots of flowcharts etc.

Many of them can not really code anymore, just like those system architects.

I do respect those who can both talk and walk: design the system, write key sample code for major components, and let the team to enrich and expand.

If they only know how to write design documents(talk the talk), I can hardly trust them that much.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#83

Post by aenis »

Speaking as a principal software architect for a large (30bn) company: - convincing others to one's ideas of good architecture - and contributing to enterprise architecture, - lots of time spent to evaluate designs, ideas, products, acquisition targets, - every fourth blue moon - some actual low level design work and programming pet projects/pocs/prototyping. Rarely :-(

I like this type of work, gives good exposure to new tech and the ability to choose what tech is being used. For my next job I want something more focused on actual programming though.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#84

Post by frizzle112 »

nicoburns wrote: post #9
jason-phillips wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That often means the decisions you make you know are not the most optimal, but the most politically optimal. Not intended to quibble, but to me that smacks of the dreaded "mid-level management" tier. As a lead or principle, I describe what I do as being a "fire-and-forget resource". I build everything myself and don't require supervision. I will deliver regardless and am also able to justify my decisions. People se…

> As a lead or principle, I describe what I do as being a "fire-and-forget resource". I build everything myself and don't require supervision. I will deliver regardless and am also able to justify my decisions. People seem to be happy so far. Terminology is subjective of course, but: I would also expect the above from a "senior" developer. I would expect a "lead" developer to additionally be involved in leading a tea…

I think it depends on the complexity of what you're building. If it's something very novel or something that requires a lot of domain or technical expertise, then you might need a principal engineer to be the point person to figure out how to even build it, or build it right. Some problems are best solved by a single person with the right skills.

Some career ladders allow for this, others are more rigid about the size of team you need to be directly leading .

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#86

Post by black_13 »

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.

Your right on the pay thing.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#87

Post by chrisseaton »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #10
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.

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…

My very first job was 'senior'.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#88

Post by [deleted] »

digitalsushi wrote: post #8
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.

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…

[deleted]

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#89

Post by elric »

If you're a senior engineer and you're sort of wondering "what's beyond senior?", you might be interested in the book "Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track". I found it enlightening, and it's nice seeing companies embracing the whole "Staff plus"-track.

Re: What does a Principal Software Engineer do?

#90

Post by 727374 »

My definition is "Finds and creates the most valuable work for other engineers to do."

I really started to see the value once I moved from Principal to Manager. All of a sudden I was busy with boring manager stuff and needed an IC who could get deep into the details of our initiatives and make sure everyone's efforts were lining up. You don't need the title of Principal to do this role, of course, but ICs who see the big picture and understand what's important for the business are invaluable.

The other points in the article are on the money as well, especially around modeling and amplifying a good dev culture for the organization.

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