Titlesby GlyphWho is hiring, May 2024
395 postings in the Hacker News thread mention 35 tracked titles; the most mentioned is Full Stack Engineer, in 18% 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.18% · e.g. Spider Strategies | 18% | 69 | +4.1 |
| 2 | Staff EngineerThe senior individual-contributor track: technical leadership without managing people.6.1% · e.g. thoughtful.ai | 6.1% | 24 | +0.5 |
| 3 | Founding EngineerOne of a startup's first engineers, usually with equity and a wide remit.5.8% · e.g. Lanai | 5.8% | 23 | +4.0 |
| 4 | Platform EngineerBuilds the internal platform other engineers deploy on: clusters, CI, paved roads.5.3% · e.g. Aha! | 5.3% | 21 | +1.8 |
| 5 | Machine Learning EngineerTrains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.4.6% · e.g. Continua | 4.6% | 18 | +0.5 |
| 6 | Site Reliability EngineerKeeps production up with software: on-call, SLOs and automation; Google's term.4.6% · e.g. Chainlink Labs | 4.6% | 18 | -1.5 |
| 7 | Product ManagerDecides what gets built and why, and gets it shipped.4.3% · e.g. Aha! | 4.3% | 17 | -4.2 |
| 8 | Product EngineerA full-stack engineer who owns product decisions too, not just tickets.4.3% · e.g. PostHog | 4.3% | 17 | +3.4 |
| 9 | Data EngineerBuilds the pipelines, warehouses and platforms that move and store data.3.5% · e.g. ML6 | 3.5% | 14 | +0.3 |
| 10 | Engineering ManagerManages a team of engineers: hiring, delivery and careers.3.5% · e.g. Chainlink Labs | 3.5% | 14 | -0.6 |
| 11 | Data ScientistUses statistics and models to answer questions with data; the "sexiest job" of 2012.2.8% · e.g. SmarterDx | 2.8% | 11 | +0.2 |
| 12 | Product DesignerDesigns how a product works and looks, from research to the final screen.2.5% · e.g. PlantingSpace | 2.5% | 10 | -2.5 |
| 13 | DevOps EngineerAutomates builds, deploys and infrastructure; the title that took over from sysadmin.2.3% · e.g. Aha! | 2.3% | 9 | -2.4 |
| 14 | Solutions EngineerThe technical half of a sale: demos, proofs of concept and integration help.2.0% · e.g. SmarterDx | 2.0% | 8 | +1.4 |
| 15 | Developer AdvocateRepresents developers to a company and the company to developers: docs, demos, talks.2.0% · e.g. Graphistry / Louie.AI | 2.0% | 8 | -0.3 |
| 16 | AI EngineerA software engineer who builds products on top of models rather than training them.2.0% · e.g. Nuna | 2.0% | 8 | +1.7 |
| 17 | Design EngineerHalf designer, half front-end engineer: prototypes and ships polished interfaces.1.3% · e.g. Temporal Technologies | 1.3% | 5 | +0.7 |
| 18 | Security EngineerFinds and fixes weaknesses in systems, code and cloud accounts.1.3% · e.g. Crusoe | 1.3% | 5 | -1.9 |
| 19 | Research ScientistDesigns and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.0.80% · e.g. PostEra | 0.80% | 3 | +0.2 |
| 20 | Research EngineerWrites the code that makes research run: training runs, experiments, infrastructure.0.80% · e.g. Meta Reality Labs | 0.80% | 3 | +0.5 |
| 21 | Head of AILeads the AI or ML group below the C-suite: VP, director or head.0.50% · e.g. ** Trunk Tools | 0.50% | 2 | +0.2 |
| 22 | Analytics EngineerModels raw data into clean, tested tables (usually with dbt) for analysts and dashboards; named by dbt Labs around 2019.0.50% · e.g. Qventus | 0.50% | 2 | +0.2 |
| 23 | Blockchain EngineerWrites smart contracts and protocol code; peaked with the 2018 and 2021 crypto cycles.0.50% · an example posting | 0.50% | 2 | +0.2 |
| 24 | Computer Vision EngineerBuilds models and systems that read images and video, from robots to retail.0.50% · e.g. MLSE | 0.50% | 2 | +0.2 |
| 25 | Head of DataLeads a company's data team: analytics, data science and data engineering.0.50% · e.g. Seen Finance | 0.50% | 2 | -0.1 |
| 26 | Data AnalystAnswers business questions with SQL, dashboards and spreadsheets.0.50% · e.g. Tufts CTSI | 0.50% | 2 | -0.7 |
| 27 | NLP EngineerLanguage models before they were large: search, classification, extraction and translation.0.30% · e.g. PlantingSpace | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 28 | Applied ScientistResearch methods pointed at a product problem; Amazon made the title mainstream.0.30% · e.g. Microsoft | 0.30% | 1 | +0.0 |
| 29 | AI Deployment EngineerDeploys and tunes an AI product or agent inside a customer's stack; a close cousin of the forward deployed engineer.0.30% · e.g. Uncountable | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 30 | 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.0.30% · an example posting | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 31 | Prompt EngineerWrites and tests the instructions given to language models; the 2023 breakout title.0.30% · e.g. Faktory | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 32 | LLM EngineerAn engineer focused on building with, fine-tuning or serving large language models.0.30% · e.g. Aircover.ai | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 33 | Member of Technical StaffA deliberately flat title from Bell Labs, revived by AI labs for engineers and researchers alike.0.30% · e.g. Contextual AI | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 34 | AI TutorWrites and grades data that teaches a model a language or a subject; a model-training role, not teaching people.0.30% · e.g. Roblox | 0.30% | 1 | +0.3 |
| 35 | Technical Product ManagerA product manager for platforms, APIs and developer products.0.30% · e.g. Valory AG | 0.30% | 1 | -1.2 |