10 steps in the career of a software engineer: From SDE-1 to Principal Engineer

In this video, Gaurav Sen discusses the different levels of software engineering positions and their expectations, from software engineer to distinguished engineer.

He explains the skills and experience needed to move up the career ladder and the responsibilities of each position. He also mentions how companies have different structures and hierarchies and the different considerations that come into play when promoting employees within the same company or hiring new ones from outside.

The entry-level position is SDE-1, which requires good coding skills and the ability to implement design patterns and make API calls.

The SDE-II position requires 2-6 years of experience and a deep understanding of the system, tradeoffs, business requirements, features, and interactions with other systems.

The Senior Software Engineer position requires interaction with other teams, setting design and code quality standards, and mentoring young engineers. This position can represent the team and make optimal decisions for the overall system. The levels of compensation vary from organization to organization.

Finally, he talks about how distinguished engineers are responsible for creating solutions that benefit not just their company but the industry or the world.

00:00 Intro
00:17 Takeaways
00:49 3. SDE-I responsibilities
01:31 2. SDE Interns
02:11 4. SDE-II responsibilities
04:05 5. SDE-III Senior Software Engineer
05:56 6. Staff Engineer or Tech Lead
06:47 Engineering Managers?
07:18 Example Staff Engineer Project
08:18 7. Senior Staff or Architect
09:52 Required Years of Experience
11:20 8. Principal Engineer
12:27 9. Distinguished Engineer
13:57 10. Engineering Fellow
14:25 Example Projects
15:29 Some Star Engineers
15:52 Likelihood of progression
16:07 Thank you!

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#Engineering #Career #Promotions

[ungarbagebin]

Thanks for making this video. It provided some much needed clarity about career progression as a software engineer. I am currently an SDE1 and often feel the impostor syndrome but this provides me a good sense of direction about what should I improve in my work to get promoted.

[marcelo-ramos]

Great video!
I think it would have been good to clarify that the ladder shown is just an example, since the actual career ladder will vary drastically depending on the company (maybe it got lost in the edit.) For example, when I was a Staff Software Engineer at IBM, it only meant I had been at the company for maybe 3 to 8 years, since it's just the second engineering level (band 7 overall). Another example is the position I have now as Principal Software Development Engineer at Oracle, which is just the 4th level in the career ladder, which is still a world away from what other companies call "Principal".

[mamotivated]

Extremely useful content. 20+ years, mountain climbing has begun

[vishirox]

Best example of Distinguished Engineer is the legendary Ken Thompson, who create C alongside Dennis Ritchie. He is currently L9 at google and is instrumental in developing Go Lang

[rahul_spawar]

very motivational and informative video, As a SDE 1 or 1.5 🤣, I lost some interest in the carrier path because of all AI enhancement and AI replacing SDE jobs and all. But this again lit some fire, Thanks a lot ❤

[rahulgarai]

Need more videos regarding these types.... amazing content 👍

[vijaysaichowdary]

HI, Gaurav Sen, I have subscribed to This is my first video from your channel. I really fell in love with your content and explanation. I am an SDE-2 and working hard for SDE-3. video made to focus more on the product eng and Technical solutions. Thanks a lot.

[arpitbhardwaj]

Hi Gaurav, amazing video. Can you also make a video about your career progression with years and what you did to get there?

[MuhammadOvi]

Great video, Gaurav!
Your explanation is very helpful for understanding career progression in the industry.
Keep making such amazing videos for us 😉

[jhonsen]

Great Content But how can you forget Jeff Dean as L10 Most celebrated Engineer at Google.

[monikapant]

but usually in service based what happen is, whatever your designation is you work as a developer in most of the cases. I am not sure how one can make it happen to take responsibility as per their designation, it is difficult in service. sector. Everything you do is according to the client needs. And once you try to switch, you need to prepare things according to your experience along with your tech expertise, does not matter what you are gonna do after joining the organisation

[surendradas]

There is one interesting level addition to all these. Its called architect.

[fahaduddin]

Hi, amazing video. Can you also share some tips to progress from one level to another like SDE II -> SDE III

[brainwizard]

very informative video, gives a lot of insight in SDE progresssion

[excitingmonkey]

Btw Sanjay and Jeff dean did map reduce . It’s right to mention both . Btw Jeff’s a distinguished engineer too.

[cripz]

In the company I work, small but quite well known service-based global company, difference between SDE-intern, I, II are very very less. The work is similar, the only difference being the speed at which you work or productive outputs. Also, the promotions are way too fast, i.e, SDE-I in 1 year is promoted to SDE-II and same is the case for promotion of SDE-II to SDE-III.
I heard somewhere that it is bad for higher levels having lower experience in an org. What do you feel?

[vnarayan]

At lot of big companies, I don’t see senior staff level, usually I see staff and then principal, have you observed this as well?

[dj]

Hats off bro... That was really insightful

[RaviPrakash-qjlz]

Hi Gaurav! Awesome video. It provides good clarity on responsibilities at each level. But one thing which I felt missing is what responsibilities will be dropped when being promoted compared to past designations. e.g. L7 engineer might not be performing management responsibilities what he/she used to do as SDE-III

[niveditaprity]

Thank You Gaurav for your amazing content