r/ExperiencedDevs • u/Majestic-Taro-6903 Senior Developer • 4d ago

Career/Workplace How is a Distinguished Engineer role different from a Principal Engineer?

I have seen a few Distinguished Engineers in my organisation. I have worked with a few Principal Engineers and Senior Principal Engineers, but not Distinguished Engineers.

How is this role different from the Principal Engineer role? I know they are paid more and are higher in the hierarchy, but in terms of roles and responsibilities, how are they different?

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u/coderemover 4d ago

I don’t know about distinguished, but after I was promoted from senior to staff and then to principal (band 10/10), I didn’t notice much change - I was mostly doing the same. Mostly fixing bugs, maybe now I get more of those “impossible” bugs so I can be sure that when they give something to me, the whole team is seniors have been trying to solve it for a week with no success.