Titlesby GlyphWho is hiring, February 2021
936 postings in the Hacker News thread mention 34 tracked titles; the most mentioned is Full Stack Engineer, in 19% of them.
Titles in this thread
Change: percentage points against a year before| # | Title | Posts | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full Stack EngineerWorks across the browser, the API and the database; the default startup hire.19% · e.g. GooseChase | 19% | 179 | +1.8 |
| 2 | Product ManagerDecides what gets built and why, and gets it shipped.8.2% · e.g. Niche | 8.2% | 77 | -1.2 |
| 3 | Site Reliability EngineerKeeps production up with software: on-call, SLOs and automation; Google's term.6.3% · e.g. JustWatch | 6.3% | 59 | +0.1 |
| 4 | Engineering ManagerManages a team of engineers: hiring, delivery and careers.6.3% · e.g. 98point6 | 6.3% | 59 | -0.1 |
| 5 | Data EngineerBuilds the pipelines, warehouses and platforms that move and store data.6.2% · e.g. JustWatch | 6.2% | 58 | +0.5 |
| 6 | Product DesignerDesigns how a product works and looks, from research to the final screen.5.8% · e.g. Niche | 5.8% | 54 | +2.7 |
| 7 | Data ScientistUses statistics and models to answer questions with data; the "sexiest job" of 2012.5.7% · e.g. Niche | 5.7% | 53 | +1.5 |
| 8 | DevOps EngineerAutomates builds, deploys and infrastructure; the title that took over from sysadmin.5.3% · e.g. Relayr | 5.3% | 50 | -0.4 |
| 9 | Platform EngineerBuilds the internal platform other engineers deploy on: clusters, CI, paved roads.4.2% · e.g. Tapad | 4.2% | 39 | +0.0 |
| 10 | Staff EngineerThe senior individual-contributor track: technical leadership without managing people.3.6% · e.g. Shield AI | 3.6% | 34 | +1.5 |
| 11 | Machine Learning EngineerTrains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.3.3% · e.g. Tapad | 3.3% | 31 | -1.2 |
| 12 | Security EngineerFinds and fixes weaknesses in systems, code and cloud accounts.2.7% · e.g. Aha! | 2.7% | 25 | -1.6 |
| 13 | Solutions EngineerThe technical half of a sale: demos, proofs of concept and integration help.2.6% · e.g. Spacelift | 2.6% | 24 | +0.7 |
| 14 | Data AnalystAnswers business questions with SQL, dashboards and spreadsheets.1.8% · e.g. JustWatch | 1.8% | 17 | +0.4 |
| 15 | Product EngineerA full-stack engineer who owns product decisions too, not just tickets.1.5% · e.g. Bunch.ai | 1.5% | 14 | -0.1 |
| 16 | Developer AdvocateRepresents developers to a company and the company to developers: docs, demos, talks.1.1% · e.g. Oso | 1.1% | 10 | +0.4 |
| 17 | Founding EngineerOne of a startup's first engineers, usually with equity and a wide remit.1.0% · e.g. ISO | 1.0% | 9 | +0.7 |
| 18 | Computer Vision EngineerBuilds models and systems that read images and video, from robots to retail.0.70% · e.g. Occipital | 0.70% | 7 | +0.2 |
| 19 | Research ScientistDesigns and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.0.70% · e.g. Spring Discovery | 0.70% | 7 | -0.2 |
| 20 | Design EngineerHalf designer, half front-end engineer: prototypes and ships polished interfaces.0.60% · e.g. Roblox | 0.60% | 6 | +0.4 |
| 21 | Blockchain EngineerWrites smart contracts and protocol code; peaked with the 2018 and 2021 crypto cycles.0.50% · e.g. Covalent | 0.50% | 5 | +0.3 |
| 22 | Deep Learning EngineerTrains neural networks; the 2016 to 2019 name for what became ML engineering.0.50% · e.g. SimBioSys | 0.50% | 5 | +0.3 |
| 23 | AI EngineerA software engineer who builds products on top of models rather than training them.0.50% · e.g. Vorto | 0.50% | 5 | +0.0 |
| 24 | MLOps EngineerRuns the training, serving and monitoring infrastructure that ML teams depend on.0.40% · e.g. Snap Inc ML Platform | 0.40% | 4 | +0.4 |
| 25 | NLP EngineerLanguage models before they were large: search, classification, extraction and translation.0.40% · e.g. Epistemic AI | 0.40% | 4 | +0.4 |
| 26 | Technical Product ManagerA product manager for platforms, APIs and developer products.0.30% · e.g. Entia | 0.30% | 3 | -0.2 |
| 27 | Analytics EngineerModels raw data into clean, tested tables (usually with dbt) for analysts and dashboards; named by dbt Labs around 2019.0.30% · e.g. Torch | 0.30% | 3 | +0.3 |
| 28 | Head of DataLeads a company's data team: analytics, data science and data engineering.0.30% · e.g. World Resources Institute | 0.30% | 3 | +0.1 |
| 29 | Research EngineerWrites the code that makes research run: training runs, experiments, infrastructure.0.20% · e.g. Mesh | 0.20% | 2 | +0.0 |
| 30 | Applied ScientistResearch methods pointed at a product problem; Amazon made the title mainstream.0.20% · e.g. Wyze Labs | 0.20% | 2 | +0.2 |
| 31 | Data Product ManagerTreats data sets and data platforms as products with users and roadmaps.0.20% · e.g. Pex | 0.20% | 2 | -0.1 |
| 32 | Head of AILeads the AI or ML group below the C-suite: VP, director or head.0.20% · e.g. PathAI | 0.20% | 2 | +0.0 |
| 33 | Forward Deployed EngineerAn engineer who ships software inside a customer's environment, part builder and part consultant; Palantir coined it, AI labs made it common.0.10% · e.g. Striim | 0.10% | 1 | +0.1 |
| 34 | Agent EngineerBuilds LLM agents that plan and call tools, and the harnesses that keep them reliable.0.10% · e.g. Rapid7 | 0.10% | 1 | +0.1 |