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Understanding the difference between staff engineer, principal engineer, and distinguished engineer can be confusing.
The IC career trajectory is less established than the path for engineering managers, with tech companies approaching titles differently. The same role can come with a wide variety of titles depending on the organization, making it hard to identify patterns around job scope, skills, and experience. It can, therefore, be really tricky to know the differences between staff engineers, principal engineers, and distinguished engineers.
To find out what IC leaders have in common, LeadDev spoke to a group of engineers and asked them to describe their roles and responsibilities. Here’s what we learned.
The typical IC leadership career ladder
Staff engineers
Staff engineer is the first rung on the IC leadership ladder, a level above senior engineer. Along with technical strength, core leadership skills such as critical thinking, judgment, listening, empathy, and communication are essential at this level of seniority.
These folks lead deep, complex, or high-risk technical projects, and steer all the communication channels around them. They support the organization by providing context and technical direction, defining technical specifications, and documenting processes. The percentage of their time spent coding differs from one person to the next, but averages around 20%.
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They also play an important coaching and mentoring role by sharing best practices with other engineers and creating new opportunities for their growth. And they give technical performance reviews, aiming to improve the technical capacity of the entire engineering organization.
Staff engineers tend to work directly with permanent teams as well as pairing with other temporary project teams. The reporting line varies from one company to another, but they have a certain level of autonomy: usually, they report to a manager but control their own day-to-day activities.
Job description
Staff+ engineers use their technical knowledge to identify areas that require improvement or change. Their day-to-day may consist of evaluating software, parachuting into teams, upgrading processes, finding solutions to system problems, establishing technical roadmaps, and leading projects.
Staff+ engineers will have a keen eye for problem-solving and leadership skills. Conflict resolution, strategic thinking, collaboration, and influencing are core tenets of their expertise.
2024 expected salary of staff engineers
The salary range for staff+ engineers varies dependent on region:
- If you’re a staff+ engineer in the USA, you can expect to earn a base salary between $114k – $175k. Glassdoor pitches additional compensation ranges from US$46K – US$86K.
- Across the pond in the UK, these individuals have an estimated base pay of £59k – £97k, with an average salary of £75, 783 a year, according to Glassdoor.
- Staying in Europe, staff engineers based in Germany can expect similar returns, with an average base pay of €95K – €115K, Glassdoor reports. Additional pay starts at €2K and can go up as high as €24K.
- In Australia, Glassdoor estimates the salary range between A$160 – A$185K. Staff engineers down under can expect an additional average of A$17,000 in compensation per year.
- In India’s booming tech industry, Glassdoor estimates an average base pay between ₹25.0L – ₹40.0L. The estimated additional pay is ₹3,50,000 per year.
Principal engineers
The rank above a staff engineer is a principal engineer. It’s harder to pin down the day-to-day execution of this role because each person’s journey depends on their own expertise, and how they can apply it to help the business achieve its goals. Generally, principal engineers exist to guide the technical direction of the company.
Principals have a deep, strategic understanding of company priorities, and make technical decisions to solve business problems. To do this, they draw on their wealth of technical experience, an understanding of different risks, and an ability to navigate different perspectives and priorities.
These folks are the connective tissue between the on-the-ground work completed by engineers, and senior executives. They’re extremely autonomous in their day-to-day work, but should be able to collaborate (and be completely aligned) with management in order to make good business decisions. Though they aren’t on the management track, they lead with influence, advising, and asserting their ideas without official authority.
Principal engineer vs. senior engineer: What’s the difference?
While both roles involve high technical expertise and leadership, principal engineers are responsible for more strategic, high-impact decisions. Their scope of influence is organization-wide, providing a lasting effect on the company’s technical landscape.
Senior engineers, on the other hand, set technical standards and lead at a team level. While still autonomous, their domain or project area will have a narrower scope.
A principal engineer’s job description
Principal engineers will set the engineering strategy for the company. These individuals will manage technical projects with broad impact, meet with stakeholders to advise and negotiate, supervise engineering teams, and mentor junior staff engineers.
Other requirements include managing deadlines, discussing budgets, and aiding in hiring and training.
A principal engineer’s salary in 2024
Depending on location, principal engineers can expect loaded salaries.
- In the USA, Glassdoor sets the base salary range to $161K – $234K, with an average salary of $194,000. Here, you can expect a healthy additional pay of $109,000 in the right circumstances.
- Over in the UK, the base salaries are somewhat tempered in comparison, according to Glassdoor. You can expect a base of around £50K – £75K, with additional compensation ranging £2K – £11K.
- Just a stone’s throw away, in Germany, Glassdoor shows that principal engineers can expect to earn an average of €100,000. Estimated additional pay ranges between €7K – €15K.
- Down under, principal engineers based in Australia can expect an average base pay of A$180,000 per year, according to Glassdoor. Additional compensation can range between A$10K – A$36K.
- In India, Glassdoor puts principal engineers’s base pay at an average of ₹35,00,000. The estimated additional pay ranges between ₹2L – ₹8L.
Distinguished engineers
Very few people make it to the level of distinguished engineer. This role recognizes these individuals for their outstanding technical achievements and is just one step away from the title of fellow. More commonly, this role exists within larger companies and these folks help to shape the organization’s direction, carve out strategic roadmaps, and meet business goals.
These leaders have the time, space, and flexibility to build out their own areas of expertise to strengthen the company. This includes working closely with other stakeholders and executive teams, keeping aligned with management, and avoiding frustration on both sides. This folds in with distinguished engineers having a strong history of growing and influencing others, highlighting a need for exceptional interpersonal skills.
A distinguished engineer’s job description
Distinguished engineers are established leaders, thought of as director-level ICs. They provide technical direction and are experts in their domain, helping to bring about practical, reusable, and scalable solutions. These individuals will drive innovation across many different levels, using their technical expertise to drive business impact.
They act as advisors to managers, advocating for technologies and platforms. Communication, collaboration, visionary outlook, and mentorship will come naturally to distinguished engineers.
2024 salary for distinguished engineers
As you’d expect from such a senior position, a distinguished engineer’s salary doesn’t disappoint.
- In the USA, Glassdoor reports a range of $125K – $210K base pay, with additional compensation averaging at a whopping $93,000.
- A UK salary isn’t so far behind, according to Glassdoor. Here, distinguished engineers can expect a yearly base pay of £98K – £173K.
- In Germany, Glassdoor shows an average base pay of €168K, with additional compensation ranging from €34K – €47K.
- In the Southern Hemisphere, Glassdoor shows that those distinguished engineers in Australia can look forward to a base pay of A$250K.
- Distinguished engineers in India, Glassdoor reports that you should expect to earn between ₹51.8L – ₹1.1Cr. Estimated additional pay sits around ₹10.0L.
Final thoughts
Getting to grips with senior IC roles is hard. There’s little alignment in the industry, with organizations approaching titles differently based on their business needs (which can change as they grow and need different things from a role).
But the leaders we interviewed all shared some common ground: they lead and advise on the big, technical decisions that impact a company’s future; they work to empower engineering squads; they build relationships with stakeholders and bridge gaps with senior management; and they find ways to lead with influence, rather than authority.
