Software Engineer Title Ladder
Within the software engineering profession, there is an ordered set of titles that are in usage for software engineers.
I have seen these titles for software engineers at a number of companies, so I think they are probably a de facto standard. (Even if some companies only use a subset of them.)
The engineering ladder seems to range from:
... at one end, to:
- Junior Software Engineer
- Intermediate Software Engineer
- Senior Software Engineer
- Staff Software Engineer
- Senior Staff Software Engineer
- Principal Software Engineer
- Distinguished Software Engineer
- Fellow
- Senior Fellow
... at the other end.
Although the meaning of senior software engineer in the former engineering ladder is a bit different than in the latter engineering ladder.
In the former engineering ladder senior software engineer really ranges the combination of the 7 most advanced engineering titles from the latter engineering ladder. I.e., the latter ladder's senior, staff, senior staff, principal, distinguished, fellow and senior fellow all get collapsed into the former ladder's senior software engineer.
(Note, I'm not here to argue whether a total order is "best". Or whether titles are a good or bad thing. I only want to document them.)
(I'm also not here to discuss whether managers should be bestowing these titles, whether your peers should be bestowing these titles, or whether you should take a non-institutional view and start using a title when what you are and what you do fits the definition of that title.)
Here I want to both list out the software engineer title ladder and describe my sense of what these seem to mean, based on my experience with them.
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