Titlesby GlyphWho is hiring, January 2025
275 postings in the Hacker News thread mention 34 tracked titles; the most mentioned is Full Stack Engineer, in 21% 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.21% · e.g. WunderGraph | 21% | 57 | +5.8 |
| 2 | Founding EngineerOne of a startup's first engineers, usually with equity and a wide remit.7.3% · e.g. Tracebit | 7.3% | 20 | +0.0 |
| 3 | Staff EngineerThe senior individual-contributor track: technical leadership without managing people.6.5% · e.g. Purplefish | 6.5% | 18 | +1.8 |
| 4 | Machine Learning EngineerTrains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.6.2% · e.g. SmarterDx | 6.2% | 17 | -0.7 |
| 5 | Data EngineerBuilds the pipelines, warehouses and platforms that move and store data.5.1% · e.g. Elicit | 5.1% | 14 | +0.4 |
| 6 | Platform EngineerBuilds the internal platform other engineers deploy on: clusters, CI, paved roads.4.0% · e.g. Sequin | 4.0% | 11 | -1.8 |
| 7 | Product ManagerDecides what gets built and why, and gets it shipped.4.0% · e.g. 10x Genomics | 4.0% | 11 | -0.4 |
| 8 | Product EngineerA full-stack engineer who owns product decisions too, not just tickets.4.0% · e.g. Eigen | 4.0% | 11 | -0.7 |
| 9 | AI EngineerA software engineer who builds products on top of models rather than training them.3.6% · e.g. Pincites | 3.6% | 10 | +1.8 |
| 10 | Data ScientistUses statistics and models to answer questions with data; the "sexiest job" of 2012.3.3% · e.g. SmarterDx | 3.3% | 9 | +0.4 |
| 11 | Site Reliability EngineerKeeps production up with software: on-call, SLOs and automation; Google's term.3.3% · e.g. Kombo | 3.3% | 9 | -1.1 |
| 12 | DevOps EngineerAutomates builds, deploys and infrastructure; the title that took over from sysadmin.3.3% · e.g. Kadoa | 3.3% | 9 | -0.3 |
| 13 | Engineering ManagerManages a team of engineers: hiring, delivery and careers.2.9% · e.g. SmarterDx | 2.9% | 8 | -2.6 |
| 14 | Solutions EngineerThe technical half of a sale: demos, proofs of concept and integration help.2.5% · e.g. Kombo | 2.5% | 7 | -0.8 |
| 15 | Research ScientistDesigns and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.2.2% · e.g. Krea | 2.2% | 6 | +0.4 |
| 16 | Security EngineerFinds and fixes weaknesses in systems, code and cloud accounts.1.8% · e.g. Zetier | 1.8% | 5 | +0.0 |
| 17 | Product DesignerDesigns how a product works and looks, from research to the final screen.1.8% · e.g. 10x Genomics | 1.8% | 5 | -1.8 |
| 18 | Data AnalystAnswers business questions with SQL, dashboards and spreadsheets.1.1% · e.g. SmarterDx | 1.1% | 3 | +0.0 |
| 19 | Design EngineerHalf designer, half front-end engineer: prototypes and ships polished interfaces.1.1% · e.g. Stack Auth | 1.1% | 3 | +0.4 |
| 20 | 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.1.1% · e.g. Thoughtful AI | 1.1% | 3 | +1.1 |
| 21 | Technical Product ManagerA product manager for platforms, APIs and developer products.1.1% · e.g. AREO | 1.1% | 3 | +0.7 |
| 22 | Research EngineerWrites the code that makes research run: training runs, experiments, infrastructure.1.1% · e.g. IBM | 1.1% | 3 | +0.4 |
| 23 | Applied AI EngineerTurns frontier models into working products for specific customers or use cases.1.1% · e.g. Lumos | 1.1% | 3 | +1.1 |
| 24 | Analytics EngineerModels raw data into clean, tested tables (usually with dbt) for analysts and dashboards; named by dbt Labs around 2019.0.70% · e.g. SmarterDx | 0.70% | 2 | +0.7 |
| 25 | Member of Technical StaffA deliberately flat title from Bell Labs, revived by AI labs for engineers and researchers alike.0.70% · e.g. Purplefish | 0.70% | 2 | +0.7 |
| 26 | Computer Vision EngineerBuilds models and systems that read images and video, from robots to retail.0.70% · e.g. Pickle Robot | 0.70% | 2 | +0.7 |
| 27 | NLP EngineerLanguage models before they were large: search, classification, extraction and translation.0.70% · e.g. PlantingSpace | 0.70% | 2 | +0.3 |
| 28 | Head of AILeads the AI or ML group below the C-suite: VP, director or head.0.70% · e.g. Optimal | 0.70% | 2 | +0.7 |
| 29 | Developer AdvocateRepresents developers to a company and the company to developers: docs, demos, talks.0.70% · e.g. Stream | 0.70% | 2 | -0.4 |
| 30 | Blockchain EngineerWrites smart contracts and protocol code; peaked with the 2018 and 2021 crypto cycles.0.40% · an example posting | 0.40% | 1 | +0.0 |
| 31 | Legal EngineerA lawyer who builds: turns legal workflows into prompts, evals and product for legal AI tools.0.40% · e.g. Norm | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |
| 32 | Head of DataLeads a company's data team: analytics, data science and data engineering.0.40% · e.g. Scribd | 0.40% | 1 | +0.0 |
| 33 | Applied ScientistResearch methods pointed at a product problem; Amazon made the title mainstream.0.40% · e.g. Intuition Machines, Inc. | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |
| 34 | Agent EngineerBuilds LLM agents that plan and call tools, and the harnesses that keep them reliable.0.40% · e.g. LiveKit | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |