I know all titles at Nike are valued than any other company. Like Directors are more like managers and VPs are like directors but what are Principals?? Loooool what is that?? A way to tell employees you are promoted but without any value?? What a joke!!
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Great idea!! Let's eliminate career opportunities to others because I can't get promoted
Principal being labeled as Expert in Marketing feels a bit cringey. It’s odd for a title to literally be “Expert” when anyone from junior to C-level could technically be considered an expert in something
According to this site, everything Senior level and up is bullsh-t filled by nobody that can do their job.
Senior, Lead, Principal, Director, Sr. Director, VP.....all complete garbage.
@d7 nah fu-k all that. They players and the game are stupid at Nike because as someone else said in the thread we are reporting to the Taj Mahal.
@je lies. Those dudes get promoted because they are in the clique. Kissing a-s outside of work and respecting the "hierarchy" is not worthwhile in any sense.
The role makes sense. The hires do not.
You said it yourself "excel at technical skill over a specific area and have more of a role with strategy and technical direction".
They should be setting the technical direction for their entire space, which includes some amount of coordination across teams and working with product to get that 'direction' onto the roadmap.
Their involvement should be incredibly visible and quantifiable. Instead we have techies teching for tech's sake. Whatever their current passion or whatever is trending on tech twitter that week. They have no quarterly or annual plan.
Almost every Principal collects an insane salary without producing any measurable results in return.
Principle engineer is another way of saying SME (subject matter expert). They typically excel at technical skill over a specific area and have more of a role with strategy and technical direction but don't manage people. Good experience to have in today's market where specific and more mastery over specific skillsets is wanted over the jack of all trades and master of none types. They are technically peers to managers and report to directors like managers do but get paid more and stock options benefits. No complaints from me on having these roles within the org.
Dont worry you will get promoted when do something worthwhile
@OP You are probably comparing Nike titles with tech companies. Titles across companies are like apples and oranges. For example, an AVP or VP at a bank is a very junior role. Also worth noting that tech companies have seen massive layoffs even if people managers at Level 1 or Level 2 would have had anywhere between 10 to 25 people reporting to them.
Honestly at Nike Principal engineers add zero value. Most of these guys copy some trendy stuff from google and show it here. Specially in data engineering teams people with hardly any experience have been hired at PE role. They literally do not even know ER diagram. just ridiculous.
If you’ve mastered the art of buttering up your bosses, get ready for your new title: Principal!
Has nothing to do with 'tech'. It's yet another symptom of tech reporting up to the Taj Mahal. Caste driven hiring leading to caste driven failure.
The appearance of work matters more than the outcomes of work.
@be i know this is the forum for dunking on everything but blame that on your ineffective leadership in Tech. your engs are incentivized to do what keeps them relevant at nike. hate the game, not the players.
Every principal engineer I've met is best friends with their senior director (or above). No accountability, no value case, just someone collecting 3 IC's salaries floating around chasing whatever is trendy but delivering nothing. The role is far too prevalent for what it actually provides.
it's a wide band. most principals operate somewhere within the range of senior eng and staff eng at any tech company. some lower, some higher. i know some principals that left nike and joined as staff+ at actual tech companies after.
It's a way to have a career path for engineers that excel a technical work and dont want to or can't lead. Lots of companies offer a technical career path no. Engineer 3 -> Principal -> Senior Principle -> Distinguished
On paper it's a great idea to not lose these engineers when they hit the IC ceiling
It’s a higher band so more money and maybe options. I’ll take it over a lead.