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Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

To me, in a way, it reads like Principal IC is the worst possible job.

You're doing all the politicking and influencing stuff many of us presumably don't like and associate with management roles, while also being expected to be "hands on" and at the top of your technical game. "Nothing is not part of your job", as this article describes it.

Someone who's not doing this, the article argues, "is setting themselves up for failure." Yikes! These are not rookies if they reached Principal IC, but the most experienced team members ever, yet the author still feels the need to say this. Which makes me thing it's a really perilous path.

Seems highly stressful. I'd rather stay a low-level IC. Do we need to move up or out? (In general I mean, I wouldn't want to work at Amazon).

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Another way to look at it is that you’re getting to do all of the fulfilling parts of management roles (helping your team(s) to grow and develop) without the less fulfilling parts (endless meetings, budget spreadsheets, unpleasant conversations, having to give up writing code).

> These are not rookies if they reached Principal IC, but the most experienced team members ever, yet the author still feels the need to say this.

At this level the job is qualitatively different from what went before - you do start as a rookie in this role, and if you only try to keep doing what you’ve done before only better then you’re not setting yourself up for success.

> Do we need to move up or out?

Not to this extent, no. If you are still a Junior after 15 years, that’s a problem and questions will be asked. But if you want to stay in a role where you keep doing what you’ve done before only better, then that’s generally completely fine and the right choice for many people.

> At this level the job is qualitatively different from what went before - you do start as a rookie in this role, and if you only try to keep doing what you’ve done before only better then you’re not setting yourself up for success.

Other people here are arguing that you only get promoted to Principal IC if you have been already acting like one in practice. We cannot have it both ways...

And if not, this seems like the Peters Principle. Why inflict this promotion on someone doing well in the other role?

If you show promise but you haven't proven yourself, that's a risky move. You either succeed or you're out, there's no going back to the previous role. I've seen it happen...

I'm reading the first couple of pages of the "Staff Engineer" book and from the various descriptions of the Staff+ role, i can't help but think it's just management without the actual power/say of being a manager. It's _even more_ politicking than being a manager because you have to do it both the soft and hard way.

It really depends on the engineer. I've seen some engineers in that exact position you describe, their job description says they influence the org broadly so that's what they set out to do. They struggle against a political and technical machine, vying for power, and trying to build a fiefdom.

Other engineers I've seen (a smaller sunset) have that job description more as an observation of their skills and influence. Their mandate isn't to influence, they just do. They are respected for their vast knowledge, historical success, and insight. So they naturally are heeded by most, and consequently they broadly influence the org.

Both cases sound miserable in their own way, but if I had to choose I'd much rather land in the latter. The latter still involves some politics, but at least it sounds like you're not wasting your life playing stupid games.

I would rather land in the latter too.

I actually don't mind that some people are good at influencing others, through well earned respect, good communication skills and technical chops.

I resent it when it becomes a mandate and some official "badge" in the career ladder. I'm suspicious of these principal/architect types who "parachute" out of nowhere into teams and projects, because it's "their mandate", ask lots of questions, mess with stuff, and then leave and don't take responsibility because "the team owns the project, not them". I've seldom seen this work well. A lot of teams end up politely ignoring what these types say, because they know if you're not a true stakeholder, what you're saying doesn't matter.

> To me, in a way, it reads like Principal IC is the worst possible job.

It depends on the person, I think. Personally, I often end up doing this sort of work, particularly in smaller companies. I really like it, but appreciate that the vast, vast majority of people I work with would hate it.

For some people, they prefer to lead through influence, rather than through a reporting line. There's a lot of toil in managing people (well), and some really excellent people don't like the core job of management, but are really really strong in some technical area, or have a broad enough perspective and enough personality to convince other people to do stuff.

In some ways, it's the software engineering world's PM, given that you have influence but not direct hierarchical power, and what matters is the amount of teams that you can influence (like sometimes this is through a piece of software, designing and building Airflow was this kind of work).

A valid perspective. I don't mind influencing people in the areas I know, but I resent the politicking and being forced to do it outside my area of expertise (and I don't believe about Principal IC can really know enough about everything, like the article implies).

You worked in the design of Airflow? We're heavy users at my current company.

> You worked in the design of Airflow? We're heavy users at my current company.

God no, but I vaguely know a few of the people involved. It was just a good example of a software tool with incredibly large impact.

Not only that, but leading through a reporting line is 90% influence, too. Relying on pulling rank will get your best reports to find a way to leave ASAP, and others will follow.

That's true, but it's still different with Principal roles as you can't get budget or headcount of your own.

Technically yes, but it’s not much different for line managers and often second level managers, though. Maybe you can approve expenses up to $500 at a time and get headcount for a couple more people approved from time to time. Not that different from an IC with a strong relationship with directors and VPs getting the same sort of allocations approved for a team/project they work with/are spinning up.

There’s a reason burnout rates go up at staff+ levels. Expectations go up w/o a commensurate amount of managerial control.

Yeah, that's my feeling as well. I'm not a Principal but I've seen people promoted to the position burn out.

I'm content being in a senior engineering role where I still get to do technical stuff (and yes, some mentorship as well). Then again, I don't define my life by my career, I'm OK with doing interesting stuff and earning a decent paycheck without climbing up the ladder. Alas! Eventually I will age out of this possibility. I'm already dreading it.

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