What does your ‘expert’ software engineering job title mean ?

There are a lot of job titles out there for expert-level software engineers—like Staff Software Engineer, Principal Engineer, or even Distinguished Engineer— but what do they actually mean? For close to a decade, I wanted to articulate what my job title entails, instead of leaving it to dubious jokes about weathered beard and high forehead.

"Staff," "Principal," "Distinguished"—these titles often come with different roles and responsibilities depending on the company you're in. In my experience, many organizations are a bit hazy about these titles and what people actually do with them in the real world is often different from what's listed in their career track documents.

Regardless of the internal title or how well the person fits the job description, these expert levels were created for a purpose. Companies often restructure and assign a numbered level after you earn your specific 'expert' job title. The goalposts shift. But there are some common reasons behind these titles.

In this article, I'll guide you through my understanding of these commonalities by breaking down their attributes into three key facets: ??Core Qualities (What they are), ? Common Misconceptions (What they are not) and ?? Organizational Support (How organizations can help them utilize their full potential)

If you hold an expert engineering title, you might find it hard to read this without feeling like an impostor. The reality is, it's tough to tick all the boxes—whether due to individual capabilities or the way you're positioned within the organization. Not every expert checks every box, and that's perfectly okay.

1. Leaders, Not Managers

?? They lead through influence rather than formal authority. However they can manage themselves and may guide a few other engineers in critical areas. It's not that they are incapable of people management or shouldn't take on such roles; rather, it's important to balance these responsibilities with the technical excellence that is central to their position. Given ambiguous organizational situations, they have the ability to navigate, experiment, adapt to new skill needs, and collaborate to find and shape their own roles, rather than being assigned one.

? This is not downplaying importance of management skills. It is just that, they aren't necessarily people managers tied up with one-on-one meetings, routine motivational duties, managing task assignments, regular delivery estimations and so on. Often instead of cheerleading everyday engineering tasks, they focus on steering the team(s) with their expertise and vision. It is not that they should avoid looking at routine engineering tasks, but the bias is towards looking at such tasks with long term capability enablement and improvements on a more foundational level.

?? Organizations should allow them to lead without the burdens of traditional management. Support their initiatives and respect their autonomy.

2. Holistic Thinkers

?? They consider the broader implications of technology decisions on the overall Customer Experience (CX) inline with the product/business strategy, client engagement contracts, end-user experience (UX), and Developer Experience (DX)—thinking beyond just code, tools, and platforms.

? They are not like junior developers who might focus more on technical aspects without considering business impact or user experience. Nor are they experts who chase after shiny new tools without considering wider implications.

?? Business leaders should include them in discussions about customer needs, and strategic objectives so they can at least be a fly on the wall and align technology solutions and choices to business needs. This gives them direct insight into the business and ensures that nothing is lost in translation while product and UX leaders form the narratives toward user stories and product road maps.

3. Accelerators with Strong Business and End-User Focus

?? They develop and advocate for accelerators—products, tools, or reusable engineering modules—that enhance User Experience (UX), Customer Experience (CX), and Developer Experience (DX), resulting in faster and better build-outs. They keep a keen eye on how technology serves business goals and fulfills user needs.

? While they can work on individual user stories and deliver results, that's not their primary focus. They're not meant for routine tasks or to be tied down to a single project or client account. However, this doesn't mean they cannot commit to a long-term project, product, or initiative, or that they shouldn't contribute to building out features when faced with pressing timelines. Often, unless you are involved in regular tasks, it is difficult to gain deeper insights into certain engineering and workflow challenges.

?? Business leaders should enable them to act as bridges across teams, projects, or even different departments. Facilitate environments where they can contribute to broader organizational goals. Project management should avoid using them merely as rapid task executors; instead, set the bar higher—beyond a single project or product build.

4. Depth of expertise

?? They possess extensive experience and up-to-date hands-on skills in design and coding in their area of specialization, often handling high user volumes, heavy traffic, or large-scale systems, making significant business impacts. Their T-shaped skills combine deep expertise in one area with a broad understanding across multiple domains, enabling them to connect the dots in ways others might not.

? They aren't expected to know everything; there may be others who are more skilled in specific areas, and that's perfectly fine. However, they are not experts who remain unaware of other important or closely related tech areas or who lack the interest/aptitude to pick up something new over time. For example, a database architect with deep expertise in a in proprietary technology but unwilling to learn about unstructured data or NoSQL, or a cloud solution architect uninterested in web application architecture, wouldn't fit this role.

?? Businesses can have long-term benefits by granting these experts the autonomy to create guilds or special interest groups, allowing them to engage with other engineers across the company. Give them the space to explore and don't confine them to a single project or area. This fosters innovation and encourages the cross-pollination of ideas, ultimately benefiting broader organization.

5. Evangelists and facilitators

?? They champion certain technologies, design approaches, open standards, or organizational initiatives. They help create and uphold new behaviors within the organization. By promoting best practices and fostering new behaviors within the organization (or across industry), they help teams evolve and adapt. For example, they can help streamline workflows between Customer Experience (CX), User Experience and Interface (UX/UI), and development teams to enhance collaboration and efficiency.

? They are not rigidly attached to specific technologies or resistant to alternative solutions. While they may advocate for open-source technologies or prefer building solutions in-house over buying off-the-shelf products, their recommendations are based on data backed analysis and alignment with business objectives—not personal bias. For instance, they might determine that developing an AI-driven build of an in-house solution could offer greater long-term value and flexibility compared to relying on a proprietary tool that may become costly over time.

?? Business leaders should be willing to experiment more by actively involving unconventional voices such as engineers and researchers in the decision-making processes, seeking their data-driven and evidence-based insights. Rather than making technology choices based solely on a "business user" point of view, organizations can leverage their expertise to make strategic decisions about tools, platforms, and partnerships. Encouraging open dialogue and valuing their input ensures that technological initiatives align with overall business goals.

6. Trusted consultants for Organizational Design

?? An expert engineer can assist business and project management in shaping skill requirements and team structures when building a new product or initiating a new client engagement. Leveraging their experience and comprehensive understanding of all the moving parts of software systems and dependencies—combined with insights into the software development lifecycle, the talent pool of engineers, and existing processes and workflows—they can help reduce handovers, enhance collaboration, and improve delivery velocity.

? They are not the final word when it comes to advising on tactical aspects involving people management, stakeholder relations, and budgeting when it comes to shaping team and cost structures. However, they can help and assist by taking ground realities into consideration. Involving someone with a focus on productivity and efficiency in these conversations, organizations can improve cost structures and team dynamics.

?? Project and Business leaders should strive to be more inclusive by incorporating strong, evidence-based insights from engineering into organizational design. This approach helps balance the bias between planning and execution.

7. Strong execution bias

?? They have a strong bias toward execution. While they can assist project management with planning, they aren't fans of overly precise estimates—especially when it comes to micro-optimizing budgets and efforts against fixed project durations. They understand that estimates are inherently uncertain and recognize that teams operating amid requirement volatility and scope ambiguity become "complex systems," not merely "complicated systems" that are more predictable. Acknowledging that building anything non-trivial often involves changing plans and unexpected turns, they focus on driving progress despite these uncertainties.

? This doesn't imply that they are less accountable for project delivery and timelines. In fact the core enablements they do should factor in these timelines. It is just that the bias is towards less rigidity in planning - often linear plans and assembly-line-style workflows rooted in scientific management principles that project managers might prefer for predictability and ease of communication to stakeholders. Such approaches can stifle creativity and adaptability. It is often voiced by business experts that scientific management fails in software industry. So, expert engineers bias towards iterating fast, the benefits are proven as in the Marshmallow Challenge. They don't get bogged down in excessive planning or detailing at the expense of actionable progress. They're unafraid to tackle tasks with scope ambiguity and has bias to build execution enablers over overly-exhaustive upfront planning when asked to work against a fixed timeline.

?? Business leaders should enable them to collaborate closely with product, project, and UX leaders to drive clarity and accelerate teams or projects. Instead of insisting on precise estimates and fixed plans, organizations can benefit by supporting their focus on execution enablers—such as automation, AI assisted development flows —that can dramatically improve delivery velocity by reducing build-time, reducing hand-over between specialists, and mitigating requirement volatility. By embracing their execution bias, organizations can adapt more effectively to change and navigate the complexities inherent in ambitious projects.

8. Humility to roll up their sleeves

?? People like this take pride in their hands-on efforts, no matter the task's importance or complexity. If you give them the simplest job during an emergency, they'll roll up their sleeves and get it done. Even if they aren't deep experts in that area or context, they'll collaborate quickly on problem solving.

? Do not send the regular chores their way always. They are not "a faster developer". This also doesn't imply that if there is a genuine pressing need such engineers shouldn't be in action. It is just that, it is not the long term mode to be in.

?? Project leaders should use these experts appropriately, providing space for meaningful contributions rather than taking shortcuts to simply get things done.

9. Can sell a holistic technology vision, not project vision

?? They can communicate holistic vision of a technology landscape effectively. They can abstract and dilute down any concept to make it accessible enough for a wider audience target.

? Effective communication with non-technical stakeholders is an essential skill for senior engineers, facilitating better alignment between technical possibilities and business goals. However, do not expect them to condense a complex technology trade-off or comparison into a single presentation slide for business stakeholders and simultaneously expect those stakeholders to rationalize and fully comprehend every detail. This is like asking a frog to climb a tree—it's not a natural fit. The ideal audience for such approach comparison technology pitches from your engineering expert comprises counterparts like technical architects and other technology strategy decision-makers. Also, avoid requiring tech experts to present planning decks and timelines disguised as technology and engineering pitches unless the presentation specifically focuses on capability enhancements and their impact on project timelines.

?? Project and business leadership can carve out a space for technology and engineering on focussed meetings instead of wider sales pitches.

Final thoughts

So to summarize it, an 'expert' engineer is often just anyone who is willing to push themselves to stand as an outlier with a strong engineering and execution bias. While majority may align themselves to follow a predictable path to get the average results and meet standard expectations, these experts strive to challenge the norm and push the boundaries - effectively stretching the curve of what's possible.

"The bell curve assumes that we live in Mediocristan, a place subject to mild randomness, where no single event dominates the total, and where the largest observation isn't too different from the others. But we often live in Extremistan." — "The Black Swan"

Further reading

staffeng.com and the book "An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson