What is the role of a Principal Engineer? (Part 1)

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Welcome to the very first edition of the Principal{s} by ScaleUp Newsletter. Every week we speak to many Principal Engineers, Staff Engineers, Senior Engineers and Technology Leaders across Australia.

A big passion of what we do here at ScaleUp Recruitment is to help the industry gain access to valuable insights and information collated from tech leaders, industry professionals and Principal / Staff Engineers.

As the popularity of the role of Principal Engineer (PE) is adopted by companies across Australia more and more, we’ve seen many differences across the responsibilities and impact the role has within businesses.

To kick things off the our feature topic delves into the question of “What is the role of a Principal Engineer?”

• Top Habits of a Principal Engineer

• CTO Principal Insights

• Article: What is the role of a Principal Engineer? (Part 1)

• Latest Salary Update

• Who's Been Hiring?

• Have Your Say

Over 90% of the Principal Engineers we’ve spoken to mentioned Curiosity as a key trait of their personality. After delving deeper to gain a better understanding of the meaning behind it it normally referred to being curious about business problems.

When it comes to Principal Engineers it was more notably around BIG business problems, how to solve them with & without technology, and either architecting or bringing together everything to actually create a resolution to the problem.

We are always speaking to technology leaders so want share with you their thoughts and insights around Principal Engineers.

What is the role of a Principal Engineer?

(Part 1)

You’ll find different variations of what a PE is depending on the company structure, size and how technology-driven they are. This is also reflected in the pay packet that some of you have kindly shared with us. It is also reflected to the level of impact that PE’s have in the business.

Throw in Staff Engineers and there seems to be even more chaos! (About 40% of people asked in the ScaleUp Principals survey of what the difference is between a Staff or Principal Engineer was, said they didn’t really know!)

ScaleUp recently interviewed over 60 Principal Engineers asking them the question “What is the role of a Principal Engineer?”. There were a lot of commonalities that came up in the responses, so we decided to highlight some of the core roles of a Principal Engineer.

1) The Glue

“The Glue” refers to being a technical expert, getting things done and bringing the team together to enable project success. Doing the glue work means you need to earn the respect of the team and the best way to do it is to have earned your stripes with technical engineering. Glue work is something described really well in a blog post by Tanya Reilly (check it out at https://www.noidea.dog/glue). Tania describes it as noticing when other people in the team are blocked and helping them out. Or reviewing design documents and noticing what's being handwaved or what's inconsistent. Or onboarding the new people and making them productive faster. Or improving processes to make customers happy. It’s a great read!

The ScaleUp Opinion – You should always continuously develop your skills to be better at the glue work. Influencing, communicating, presenting, negotiating, leveraging, listening, interviewing skills etc – all the fun stuff I know you must love. This will enable you to not just be a better technologist, but a better communicator and critical thinker, basically crushing it at life in general.

2) The Technical Expert

Every PE throws technical skill and ability into their answers when it comes to being asked “What is the role of a Principal Engineer?”. It’s a given, right, you can’t get past being a senior without developing expertise in at least one technical field. A commonality we discovered though is deep technical ability is not the most important thing required to be a great PE. Most will always be hands on to some degree but as a PE you will be looking at the bigger picture and utilising people around you with deep technical knowledge to do the heavy technical work. You will always be there to help problem solve, inspire them and keep the team striving to the high technical bar you put in place.

The ScaleUp Opinion – Technical ability will always be a part of a PE role, depends on many factors as to how hands on you will be based on the project, the company, the urgency etc. Being able to get in the trenches when required and make sure the best engineering methodologies are in place will always be a big part of a PE role.

3) The Visionary

Being a visionary means you see the bigger picture. You understand complex business problems and how they can be solved using technology & people. Nearly every PE we spoke to said that understanding the ACTUAL business problems & challenges is one of the main roles of a Principal Engineer. Once you do this you can then look to work towards putting the plans and actions in place. What drives a visionary? CURIOSITY! Being curious around solving business problems, how you do it with technology and how to bring the business with you on your journey to do so, mastering this is what separates being a good PE and a great PE.

It doesn’t stop at being curious though as great visionaries need to be able to articulate their understanding of these business problems to all the different stakeholders across the business. They might need to have the confidence speak to C Suite/ the board and have inspirational conversations to suggest new feature development, win over and influence the Product team to be on board to solve these problems or communicate the tech with developers to hash out what you want to achieve. In order to do this a great PE has to be able to communicate in different styles depending on the stakeholder. It’s a critical part of a true Principal Engineer and if you can master your ability as a visionary and influence the powers that be, your value as a PE will skyrocket.

The ScaleUp Opinion – Mastering being a visionary is key to being a great PE and being curious is something we hear as important from all the most successful leaders. Dave Bolton shares some great insights about being curious on Episode One of the ScaleUp Sound Bytes Podcast which you can listen to here.

4) The Leader

Another common occurrence in the PE’s we spoke to leading by example and setting the engineering standard. To do this most people said they had to prove themselves and gain the respect of the people around them first but once doing so it opened the doors to really getting things done and building a cohesive team. At the start for most PE it meant they had to set time aside to code even though they are stuck in meetings or have 1,000 things to do, you still need to code and code well. Whatever it is, Principal Engineers act as a lighthouse to the rest of the team. Coding standards become your responsibility, and you need to be the solution. Pair programming was mentioned a lot as it allows you to build relationships with the team while showing your technical knowledge.

The ScaleUp Opinion – Techniques like Pair Programming can be valuable when leading and help to creating an engineering culture that values great standards and shared learning. Take a listen to Episode 8 of ScaleUp Sound Bytes where Sam talks with Selena Small as she gave an in depth discussion on pair programming, you can listen to it here.

5) The Conductor

It’s an interesting term we heard a lot defining a PE as a conductor but it’s a very elegant way of describe what they do. Just as a conductor of a symphony would lead and guide everyone in a harmonious flow to create beautiful music, a PE does the same across a business, project or team. When a PE does their job well; the engineering design fits together. Being a conductor meant that:

• teams work harmoniously together

• systems are built to the designed spec

• any issues along the way are compensated for and handed smoothly

• projects are delivered on time to a sound conclusion

• business objectives are fulfilled.

As a conductor the responsibility lies with you, it’s a big role but done well PE’s aren’t 10x developers in themselves, however, have the ability to multiple the team output by 10x.

The ScaleUp Opinion – This really was a drop mic moment, hearing the above statement from the highest paid Principal Engineer we’ve ever interviewed it’s a beautiful and simple way to describe such a complex role.”

Summary

 Principal Engineers tend to be the tech superheroes of the organisations they’re a part of. They combine deep technical expertise, leadership skills, and strategic foresight to help shape the future beyond just coding. The journey often involves continuous learning, overcoming challenges, solving complex technical and business problems all while honing their leadership abilities. They often need to wear many hats, drive technical excellence, improve processes, and mentor the next generation of engineers. Doing all of this while fostering a collaborative and supportive work environment, uplifting the people around them.

Based on research and conversations, we’ve found a Principal Engineer is generally split into 3 core areas:

• Technical Expert

• Influencer

• Architecture

In “What is the role of a Principal Engineer? (Part 2)” we will be delving deeper into PE core traits as well as the Principal Engineering Trifecta!

We are constantly collating information from Principal & Staff Engineers, a hot topic is always salary levels and compensation. Every month we will provide you with a snapshot of the base salaries over the last 12 months from Principal Engineers.

Mean: Average salary level based on the data we have obtained,

Median: Middle salary when all salaries are put in order.

If you are a Principal or Staff Engineer we want to hear your thoughts! Take part in our Principals Questionnaire to have your say and share your knowledge on being a top Principal Engineer.

https://forms.office.com/r/vbYqe5qZdE

Every newsletter we will give you a snapshot of companies currently hiring for Principal Engineers but for the first edition we want to give an overview of the companies across Australia currently employing the most Principal & Staff Engineers.

Principal Engineers

Staff Engineers

*LinkedIn Talent Insights 2025.

This Newsletter is brought to you by the ScaleUp Recruitment Team, we’re always interested in a chat so feel free to give us a call. If you are looking for a new position send us your resume and we look forward to speaking to you soon.

We are always looking to improve the information contained in this newsletter and the best way for us to do that is if you let us know what you are interested in and your thoughts.

We encourage you to send us an email (easiest way is to reply to this newsletter) and let us know. Key areas we are keen to hear about are:

• Your thoughts on the newsletter (good or bad).

• Principal & Staff Engineering topics you want to hear about.

• Thoughts around the information in this newsletter.

• Are you looking for a Principal Engineer position?

• Are you hiring for Principal Engineers”