Principal vs Lead vs etc...

[dpollack]

What are the nuances to the terms principal/principle (I don't know which is supposed to be the proper spelling, but I have seen both) engineer vs lead engineer vs engineer?

 

[IRstuff]

Has to be taken in context, there is no "official" meaning to these words.

One company I know about gave their engineers titles like "Grand Poobah."

TTFN

 

[GregLocock]

One well known company allowed people to select their own job titles.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[monkeydog]

Greg,
Where is this company. I would like to work there:
"Monkeydog Engineer of the Universe"

 

[Timelord]

Hey monkeydog!

My company allowed me to chose my title. We are presently looking for a controls engineer, do you qualify?

Timelord

P.S. We are located in Albuquerque, land of eternal sunshine.

 

[ICman]

I've been a Principal Engineer and Lead Engineer. Did the same thing in both positions.

However, I would define the difference as Principal is the engineer in charge; often the primary person doing the work. The Lead Engineer directs others doing the work, or may determine the path to follow.

It's a gray area. BTW, "Principal" is correct. "Principle" is not normally used in this context. (at least that's what I was told).

. . . Steve

 

[TD2K]

I guess it varies a lot. Principal here is a specific grade for our engineers (think of senior). Lead is just a title for a specific job indicating I have overall responsibility. I might easily be lead on one job while working on another job under someone else.

 

[GregLocock]

That company was Autodesk, the force behind Autocad.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/

http://www/autofile.html

for an entertaining and rather long account of the history of Autocad.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[quark]

My earlier company doesn't have faith in designations and we were called as members of management team. Our responsibilities used to be beyond our capability sometimes. Suppliers and contractors used to send us mails with our name followed by the designations of Senior Manager, DGM and GM etc. My boss used to say that we should not accept anything less than a VP. The flip side for not having this knowledge was that when I changed that company I got one of the lowest designations of my present company. (I somehow managed, later, to get a proper one)

Eng-Tips.com : Solving your problems before you get them.

 

[PSE]

dpollack,

The job title and description are all company dependent as can be seen by the various postings. Best bet, (assuming that they have them), is to check the job description where you work. For another example, where I work, we do not use the title "Lead Engineer". The technical Hierarchy goes as follows:

Associate Engineer
Engineer
Senior Engineer
Principal Engineer

Each has various pay grades and experience/educational requirements, Associate being an entry level type position, Engineer being one who works within area of discipline, Seniors have responsibilities for full products/processes and Principals are the company wide "experts" on various technologies, products, and processes. For a managerial "equivalency" the Seniors are equivalent to Group Managers and the Pricipals to Department Managers.

Regards

 

[johnwiss]

Lead/Princ. Engineers typically are project titles. Where I work it goes: Associate Engineer, Engineer, Member of Tech staff (MTS) (I-V) then Director, VP, Sr. VP. in the engineering group. There is also a program management organization with its titles. Sometimes if the organization is flatter there are two titles: Senior MTS and Principal MTS for engineering. The title should really be ignored until you find out if they mean anything and are tied to compensation and/or responsibility.