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Mar 30 '25
it's a typical pyramid structure, as you move towards the top there will be less opportunities as your compensation increases. Also most of the people move into engineering management after a certain experience.
About the tech stack part, sometimes even a person with 3 yoe can be better than someone with 7 yoe. You'll notice changes when it comes to architecture, tech docs, people management, estimations and other things.
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u/Acceptable-Fox-551 Mar 30 '25
Agreed and that's where my fear lies.
I see SWE with 2-3 years of experience (pair them with AI) coding at more or less same level as experienced folks. So it will be harder for me to justify my high compensation just based on my coding skills.
I feel like I should move to product management now.
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u/_vptr Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
As an individual contributor your value usually increases the most if you focus on a specific domain, for ex. someone who's been working for a decade solely on kernel, network or os driver will definitely have expertise that can't easily be replaced by any good engineer.
Also most engineers anyway transition to manager role later where scale of the project and size of organization you lead gives you the expertise that helps you differentiate yourself.
Now comparing to other profession, personally for me, IT has helped me gather wealth more quickly than other professions, so I also get to enjoy it.
I also feel this profession keeps me secluded from politics, general public, media and goons which is a big plus.
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u/Elegant-Road Mar 30 '25
It's a waste of time, money and effort if the principal engineer is doing the same stuff as a regular engineer. (Not really sure if it is the case based on what op posted)
Can't explain how much of a life saver my principal engineer was. The maturity he brought to technical discussions for establishing scopes, negotiating timelines, pushbacks to a shitty manager, resolving outages, establishing communication language with the stake holders.
PEs are the real deal especially when there is no dedicated architect position in the team.
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u/TunedAt432Hz Mar 30 '25
> Yet, there’s not a single thing he can do that I can’t.
That's something I think all engineers believe about themselves at some point.
I have worked with Principal & Staff Engineers. Sure, I can develop or program anything they can, but where it differs is the breadth of knowledge they gather over 15 - 20 years and how easily they can come up with a solution to a problem just because they were part of some old tech, protocol or discussions that's not popular today, but still in use.
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u/huk_n_luk Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
Let me give you an analogy. Think about the difference between a junior doctor and a senior doctor. They both went to the same medical school— in fact, the junior doctor might even be more up-to-date with the latest techniques, given how quickly science evolves. But the real distinction becomes clear in the operating room. When a patient suddenly starts losing blood, junior doctors often panic, unsure of what to do. Senior doctors, on the other hand, stay calm. They've seen this before. They know how to respond decisively because they understand not just the procedures, but the human body on a deeper level.
Now let’s relate this to software engineering. Junior engineers are great at building things quickly—they’re often the ones who take ideas from zero to one. But the real test comes at scale: when the system is handling thousands of API calls per minute, and one small mistake starts corrupting data or brings down services. This is when your principal engineer steps in. They don’t just fix the bug—they stabilize the service first, contain the blast radius, and then restore data carefully so the system stays online. You might know how to write an optimized API, but your principal engineer knows that no amount of optimization helps when you hit DB connection limits or start facing cascading failures.
As you grow in your engineering journey, a few things become clear:
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You start to understand which losses are reversible and which aren't—so you architect systems accordingly.
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You realize that every “new” framework is still grounded in the same core principles of math and computer science. For example, vector databases are built on the same linear algebra you studied in high school—remember the dot product?
PS: I have 2x experience than you and yet everyday feels like I don't know shit, perhaps you should keep better company.
A lot of engineers I meet are able to write a bloom filter because of course AI, but if asked to implement it on paper they seldom know what they are talking about.
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u/mr_hippie_ Mar 30 '25
Entitlement is a more common issue I've seen in engineers than a lack of skill. For example, claiming you can do what your principal engineer does.
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u/Radiant-Rain2636 Mar 30 '25
That’s why you guys need to strive for vision based roles or leadership positions. The stereotype of the introvert needs go be worked against.
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u/longpostshitpost3 Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
we have a Principal Engineer with 15 years of experience. I have 7. Yet, there’s not a single thing he can do that I can’t. And I’m saying this humbly, not as an attack. If he has 7 more years than me, shouldn’t he bring unique value to the company that I can’t else survival will be tough.
Ignorance is bliss.
Companies are ruthless. If he's not doing anything that you can't, he'd be long gone. Principal Engineers are paid a lot. Companies aren't stupid to keep paying that amount of money to someone while someone with half the experience can do everything for a lot less money.
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u/desultoryquest Mar 31 '25
Lol you’re overestimating your skills. Pretty sure the principal guy has done stuff that you dont even know exists 😂 you don’t know what you don’t know
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u/Vegetable-Mall-4213 Mar 30 '25
The doctor with 7 years of experience can do all that doctor with 15 years of experience can do.
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u/jules_viole_grace- Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
Experience, you might gain it in 8 yoe or you might not gain it at 20 yoe.
When these people who are in a higher position than you are taken, they bring maturity and years of experience where they learned from their past mistakes, handled different types of problems, provided cross cutting resolutions , successfully completed various projects, as a result they are valued more than you. But yes, at 3-5 yoe also one might gain that experience if you have faced lots of such situations.
These positions make people accountable for multiple projects and decisions. They might lose their jobs just cuz they messed up a client meeting or demo....
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Mar 30 '25
People need to understand it’s not always programming or work that gives him experience. He has seen so many projects, hurdles, deadlines managing clients. How to design and convince a hard client etc. anyone can do the work. But only experienced can make you good manager or people person. Or individual contributor who don’t say I can’t but can say how he can.
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u/RR_2025 Mar 30 '25
I think there might be several things at play.
Firstly, the staff engineer might be in a role that doesn't make full use of his skillsets.
Secondly, there's a thing called a T-shaped engineer - i.e., someone who's deeply knowledgeable in one or few fields (like the vertical I in T), along with having shallow knowledge about a breadth of things (the horizontal — in T). You sure what skill you're evaluating them on?
I moved to the EU and noticed that the positions here have very different expertise as compared to India - in general, a Senior engg. in the West is at par with a Staff in India. Especially when designation rise in India is given merely by spending enough yrs in an org. So also possible that what you're saying IS the thing, and this person got the designation merely due to time.
Lastly, it reminds me of a story my TL once said - there was an old guy in a factory, who used to come to the factory and just solve puzzles and read the newspaper the entire day. Others were confused and angry with this guy eating up free salary. One day, a machine stopped working and the entire production line came to a halt. Everyone panicked. This guy casually walked up, pressed some buttons, tightened some bolts, and the machine started to work, production started, BAU in 2 mins. This guy then walked to his place, to finish his puzzle. Point is, you never know the worth of the experience till something bad happens.
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u/ttbap Mar 30 '25
True, in software engineering roles value add does saturate after a while. Mainly due to organisational constraints:
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when you evolve to a more architectural position, your breadth is limited to the tech your org uses.
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your depth is again capped by how complex the problems that you are solving. Say, an engineer with experience in building front end will reach saturation sooner than someone say who works on flutter at google. Both jobs are related to front end but are miles apart in terms of the level you are working at.
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Individual contribution requires lot of work, after a while the truly passionate ones are forced into higher roles that involve decisions making (hence no time to hone your skills further). While some who are just tired of working tend to switch to management positions, which involve jargons, meetings, politics etc, thus degrading their ability to learn or even the perspective around it.
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u/Any-Competition8494 Mar 30 '25
Experience is good but I have read that your age counts against you in 40s and 50s, unless you go into management.
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u/AlternativeClean3023 Mar 30 '25
if you think you are too good , try for a better role at another company. better make something better than you companies core product. if you can't you are most likely deluded. seems like you are working on the same techstack for some time mostly plumbing things . find something cooler to do
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Mar 31 '25
The fact that you are asking this question and he is not .
just go into a management ladder and climb that if you are so keen , I'm sure after 8yoe people will welcome you at a management role ...
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Mar 30 '25
Because technology keeps changing, if you want to enjoy accumulated experience you have to be in research where the focus is niche and to keep pushing..
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u/Candid-Appeal-9043 Mar 30 '25 edited Mar 30 '25
As a fellow 8yoe exp at staff equivalent role - you are either underestimating his knowledge or overestimating breadth and depth of your knowledge.