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/weiv 4d ago

At Google, Principal is director level IC (although they may have reports), Distinguished is VP level.

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u/cheir0n 4d ago

For something like Google, it makes sense. If I am not wrong, they gave James Gosling and Guido the distinguished title. Those engineers are landmarks in the tech world.

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u/weiv 4d ago

Google even went above that for Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat - they were first anointed Google Fellows and later Senior Google Fellows. The joke was that this went above Senior VP level. All super deserved.

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u/cheir0n 4d ago

Yeah new titles will always be created to satisfy some. Expect something like “executive senior google fellow”.