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

[@maurocerbai7930]

Waiting for EM-1 path 😉

[@gkcs]

Like this comment to keep it on top!

[@anishjain1941]

@@gkcs Please add EM as well as PM path. I got to see some people from engineering also move directly to PM path. Would like to know the differences and their work.

[@ssuriyaprakash1]

yeah also discuss path for operational or support roles.

[@timepass6935]

What is EM

[@twistedspirit]

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.

[@gkcs]

Glad it was helpful!

[@mamotivated]

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

[@gkcs]

Summit Everest, you'll make it!

[@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".

[@gkcs]

That's right, thank you for sharing your experience!

[@armoredtomato]

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

[@gkcs]

Awesome profile :D

[@rahulgarai4822]

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

[@gkcs]

Thank you!

[@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.

[@gkcs]

Thanks Vijay!

[@ash4733]

The quality of his all videos are 🔥

[@gkcs]

Thank you!

[@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 ❤

[@gkcs]

Best of luck!

[@MuhammadOvi]

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

[@gkcs]

Thank you, I will!

[@arpitbhardwaj2715]

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

[@gkcs]

Thanks for the suggestion :D

[@surendradas8174]

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

[@gkcs]

The architect is usually L7, also known as senior staff engineer.

[@monikapant3365]

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

[@gkcs]

I am not well versed with the service sector. Thank you for sharing your experience 😁

[@sampreeth6575]

I do agree with your comment. I am currently in a service based company. What I feel designation is just given based on the number of years of experience. Work content remains the same irrespective of designation. I have personally seen associate engineers, senior engineers, leads do the same work unlike product based companies where entry level (SDE1) does coding mainly and SDE2 focuses more on system design,distributed systems and building large scale systems. So in product companies there is clearly a difference in work based on designation!!

[@sampreeth6575]

Also in service based companies you are randomly tagged to any project irrespective of your branch, expertise. It's all random over there and the common thing they say is based on requirements and availability you are assigned to so and so project and they try to convince saying even this field is good you need to know everything!!

[@brainwizard8915]

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

[@fahaduddin2666]

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

[@gkcs]

For every promotion, you need to perform at the level you want to go to. For example, to go to SDE-3, you must perform as an SDE-3 for 6 months (take responsibility for the team coding standards, manage peripheral system dependencies, etc...)

[@sahilsingh2606]

Thanks a lot Gaurav for sharing this.

[@gkcs]

Glad it was useful!

[@jhonsen9842]

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

[@gkcs]

I missed him, sorry :)

[@111000dj]

Hats off bro... That was really insightful

[@gkcs]

Thank you!

[@niveditaprity]

Thank You Gaurav for your amazing content

[@gkcs]

Thanks Nivi!

[@ankk98]

Software world will change fast. We can't think of decades of careers.

[@OKBYE0]

even i feel same .. can u say what will be the focus industry in future

[@GoutamReddydazz]

Thanks man..❤❤❤❤❤

[@excitingmonkey3970]

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

[@gkcs]

Yes he also jointly built page rank.

[@vnarayan100]

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?

[@gkcs]

I haven't seen that, is there a company you can point me to?

[@akashvardhan6189]

Top notch content.

[@gkcs]

Thank you!

[@chrispresso1]

Thanks, very helpful!

[@gkcs]

You're welcome!

[@cripz4203]

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?

[@gkcs]

High levels for low experience is an indicator of an exceptional performer, or incorrect leveling.

[@venkatesansharankumar5341]

Thanks for sharing.👍.

[@gkcs]

Thank you too!

[@kzmOP]

Thanks for info.

[@gkcs]

Always welcome!

[@Couple8541]

What’s the experience required from SDE -3 ?

[@theSeniorSDE]

why not increase the production quality of the videos now? That will make the viewing experience even better to watch

[@gkcs]

Hey Pushkar, could you please explain what you mean by that?

[@deepika3389]

You share very rich content 👍 Also please make PM path too

[@gkcs]

Thank you!

[@RaviPrakash-qj2lz]

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

[@gkcs]

Thanks Ravi! That's a very good question! What you should or shouldn't delegate is a tricky question. I'll create a video on this too :D

[@sams6454]

None of the senior staff engineers I know are going to be writing a custom network protocol. Seems a bit ambitious to me?

[@areebwadood6273]

Gaurav be like - " You may become principal engineer soon" Me who is eagerly wanting to get promoted to SDE-2

[@gkcs]

All in good time 😁

[@doobleshoodle]

Hey @Gaurav, can you share a pic or the PDF of the board for future reference?

[@sparshpriyadarshi]

Hey Gaurav I'd say for roles at the higher ups try and invite someone with that first hand experience for a chat too. Because many young engineers here should probably realize how an example career path and scope of responsibilities and impact is not the end-all-be-all template.

[@allwin.]

How to become Salesforce Developer to entry level SDE roles , please guide me

[@iwoz]

I am a network engineer with 13 years of experience and is a CCIE in routing and switching from 2009. I ve been coding Python, and JS for last 7 years and have build network monitoring system for my organization. If I switch career to full time software engineer role where in this career ladder should I aim for. Thanks

[@gkcs]

I would think you are heading for a senior software engineer role.

[@iwoz]

@@gkcs thanks. Any skill sets you recommend me to concentrate on to?

[@ayushdubey9618]

Thanks Gaurav you always comes up with unique videos, I have some doubts for example for sde2 of some product based or startup might be working on design pattern and microservices architectural patterns but that is not the same case with person working for service based organisations so how to match that level , how would I work on that design patterns and others things that you mentioned since that thing I am not using.

[@gkcs]

There are a few options: 1. Look for opportunities at work (discuss with your manager and other teams). 2. Switch to jobs which have such work. 3. Open source.

[@mamotivated]

Wonder what the path is for data scientist

[@s1ddh-rth]

"Shut up and do DSA" - GKCS. Got me good 😂😂

[@gkcs]

"Also, buy my interview course" :p

[@s1ddh-rth]

@@gkcs will do soon enough!

[@ankitpunia4722]

What about Architect and Sr. Architect?

[@AshishKumar-kv4hr]

What would be the level of an architect?

[@parasrajput6839]

Hi, i am a 12 year experienced professional working on Microsoft technologies in a service based company. Is it possible to switch to DSA and get jobs in a product based company and do recruiting companies prefer such transitions?

[@architjain5108]

Product manager path?

[@saranemohan]

May I know the position of software architect/ solution architect.

[@gkcs]

It would be at L7, also known as senior software engineer.

[@vnarayan100]

L7 is actually staff or senior staff engineer correct?

[@mjj3tube]

It would be Great you could do a career path for Test Automation gaurav.

[@gkcs]

It is the same for all IC roles 😁

[@aditgulia]

In our company principal engineer comes after distinguished engineer 12:43

[@gkcs]

Interesting!

[@aishwaryshukla8880]

EM path please! Also does doing MBA after few years of being SDE help for EM path? If not then why do some people do MBA after SDE

[@gkcs]

I think it does help. It helps see the big picture better.

[@aishwaryshukla8880]

@@gkcs Thanks for replying!

[@mohitpatel1641]

Amazing video, just one suggestion improve the thumbnail of the videos.

[@gkcs]

Thanks for the tip. What would you prefer?

[@mohitpatel1641]

Take some predefined templates and edit accordingly.

[@techknowledgebase4504]

What about Architect path. After SDE3 or 4

[@gkcs]

The architect would be a senior staff engineer.

[@solomoon4784]

The predictability of even the best path is tragic.

[@VanshikaChowdhary-ys9gt]

Hi, I am currently SDE1 and thinking of management roles. Is it possible to get into management role without mba, how many of years of experience is needed on a minimum.

[@gkcs]

You need about 8 years of experience, at minimum, before you are considered for a management role as an SE.

[@celticspyd5887]

bharath who became principal engineer in microsoft in 9 year

[@shreyashachoudhary480]

Are SDE different from frontend 😅 Throughout video you assumed sde as backend dev

[@mridulchaudhary8545]

Please shed some light on topic how AI might affect engineering industry in coming 5-10 years.

[@kunalsharmain]

I think it is not fixed based on experience. Sometime based on pay scale companies provide the similar position but work might be different. Like you are as tech lead but working as SDE2. That happened a lot in covid times and even before too

[@gkcs]

It depends on the size of the company and the funds too, yes.

[@lansi3608]

Where is the CEO path?

[@gkcs]

Ah, the path to poverty :p

[@nihshrey]

Dig it

[@akjoker79]

GKCS is a star already

[@gkcs]

Well, thank you!

[@shankarnanda7756]

tum bahut mast kam karta hai malum 🫂

[@shubhamuniyal9047]

Currently I'm just an ex😢

[@sohamghosh9212]

Hi Bengali, Precise delineation!

[@sai2ramya]

You look like Sourabh Mukherjea 😂

[@NitishUpreti]

PRINCIPAL engineer and not PRINCIPLE engineer. 😄