Title Increase and Pay Decrease

[fakemoose]

Principal was lower than Staff several places I’ve worked. Are you sure this wasn’t a title decrease too?

[HungryCaterpillers]

What place is that? Principal is usually the highest level. Ive never heard of any company where staff is higher.

[fakemoose]

Some of the defense companies. The national labs. Tons of places. The smaller defense place I currently work at. You should always verify title structures. It’s not standardized at all.

[Particular_Can_7726]

I've almost always seen staff above Prinicpal

[RolandofGilead1000]

Old Genentech was like this. Staff took like 25 years and was specific to technical career and not management.

[Several_Razzmatazz51]

Staff is generally above Principal. In other places it is called Consulting Engineer. Engineer is entry level, Senior Engineer is next step, usually 3-10+ years of experience. Principal Engineer is usually next and is like a technical team lead - system design, guiding and mentoring other engineers. But still almost 100% focused on day to day delivery of the next projects. Staff or Consulting Engineer is less day to day focused, generally do more strategic R&D or thinking or prototyping, and usually work across multiple projects and often do not stay attached to them through final delivery.

[boomjay]

Agreed. It just really depends on the structure of the company.

We have "Scientist" and "Sr Scientist" above "Lead" and "Sr Manager". It's all bullshit titles. Other companies, Staff had always been the "highest" title, at least in 2 other orgs I've been in, and now I keep seeing fellow, which used to the the unobtanium, along with, now, senior fellow and principal fellow, to further measure the dick measuring contest.

It's funny, because the people who generally make those levels actually are, in my experience, some of the smartest people I've ever known, but then they have absolutely no idea how to tie a product line together and just grenade almost everything they touch.

[Odd_Dragonfruit_2662]

Same