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Comment by pedrosorio | Hacker News Reader

"tenured engineering managers"?

http://thestartupconference.com/2017/03/25/the-350k-google-s...

That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap. And those are figures for experienced workers to boot, and "Staff Engineer" is typically a managerial role IMO, if not directly by delegation/HR-type stuff, then in a technical sense.

The total comp is in practice also generally a bit lower because most of those companies backload the vesting

“Staff Engineer” is about halfway up the technical career ladder in many places, with a few possible (but increasingly rare) levels above, and a few levels below. Someone promoted to staff engineer likely has at least 5 years of work experience (probably more) and is self-motivated, good at their job, gets along well with their coworkers, and has some technical vision.

Many of these people might have some quasi-managerial duties (interacting with other parts of the organization, helping with recruiting, ...), get roped into more meetings than they would like, or make high-level technical decisions and delegate work to a handful of more junior engineers, but most of them are sitting at their desks writing code a significant part of the day (or perhaps rewriting the schlocky code that the junior engineers just handed in).

I think it depends on the company. I was extrapolating from my own experience but I realize it may not be the same elsewhere. In my experience Staff Engineers were almost always at least 10 years-experienced. I might be wrong about those companies I mentioned, though, because I've never worked at any of them

Also keep in mind I said "usually" in my original comment. Blue collar labor and software engineering are not directly analogous because yes, there are software developers at the high end that are making a lot of money compared to some of the best blue collar workers. But it's still only a small percentage of them making that much, and I wouldn't mention those figures to someone looking to go into software for that reason

I've worked for 2 well known software companies and what you are describing is a Senior Engineer in both (5-10 years experience).

The place I am now starts fresh grads as Engineer I, then Engineer II, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Architect and then Staff Engineer. Each promotion takes about 4-5 years so you aren't reaching Staff until about 20 years. A Staff Engineer is basically fully autonomous and is an IC that reports directly to the executives. They work on what they want and with who they want.

I understand this is different at Google and I guess Staff is the equivalent to a Google Fellow.

My experience aligns with yours

Yeah, the version the earlier poster was talking about in his link is somewhere between your levels of Senior and Principal.

"That's an even more specific case, because again, most software developers aren't working at Google/FB/Airbnb/Uber/Snap."

That's why you said:

"when it's usually 10-20+ year tenured engineering managers at a few specific companies"

right?

Yeah I was speaking in broad terms across the industry, not accounting for edge cases

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