Titlesby GlyphWho is hiring, September 2026
255 postings in the Hacker News thread mention 34 tracked titles; the most mentioned is Full Stack Engineer, in 9.4% 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.9.4% · e.g. Quill | 9.4% | 24 | -9.7 |
| 2 | Staff EngineerThe senior individual-contributor track: technical leadership without managing people.8.2% · e.g. Stream | 8.2% | 21 | -0.8 |
| 3 | Product ManagerDecides what gets built and why, and gets it shipped.7.1% · e.g. PlantingSpace | 7.1% | 18 | +0.4 |
| 4 | Product EngineerA full-stack engineer who owns product decisions too, not just tickets.6.7% · e.g. Modash.io | 6.7% | 17 | +1.7 |
| 5 | Platform EngineerBuilds the internal platform other engineers deploy on: clusters, CI, paved roads.6.7% · e.g. OysterHR | 6.7% | 17 | -0.3 |
| 6 | AI EngineerA software engineer who builds products on top of models rather than training them.6.7% · e.g. Starbridge | 6.7% | 17 | +0.0 |
| 7 | Security EngineerFinds and fixes weaknesses in systems, code and cloud accounts.5.9% · e.g. Smarkets | 5.9% | 15 | +3.2 |
| 8 | Founding EngineerOne of a startup's first engineers, usually with equity and a wide remit.5.5% · e.g. Aerdos | 5.5% | 14 | -2.9 |
| 9 | 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.5.1% · e.g. Trustible | 5.1% | 13 | +3.4 |
| 10 | Machine Learning EngineerTrains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.3.1% · e.g. Attendi | 3.1% | 8 | -2.6 |
| 11 | Data ScientistUses statistics and models to answer questions with data; the "sexiest job" of 2012.2.7% · e.g. Spade | 2.7% | 7 | +0.4 |
| 12 | Data EngineerBuilds the pipelines, warehouses and platforms that move and store data.2.4% · e.g. Cerity Partners | 2.4% | 6 | -2.6 |
| 13 | Research EngineerWrites the code that makes research run: training runs, experiments, infrastructure.2.4% · e.g. Renaissance Philanthropy | 2.4% | 6 | +1.4 |
| 14 | Member of Technical StaffA deliberately flat title from Bell Labs, revived by AI labs for engineers and researchers alike.2.4% · e.g. Shared Context Lab | 2.4% | 6 | +2.1 |
| 15 | Site Reliability EngineerKeeps production up with software: on-call, SLOs and automation; Google's term.2.4% · e.g. PostHog | 2.4% | 6 | -1.3 |
| 16 | Engineering ManagerManages a team of engineers: hiring, delivery and careers.2.4% · e.g. Comity Inc. | 2.4% | 6 | -2.6 |
| 17 | Agent EngineerBuilds LLM agents that plan and call tools, and the harnesses that keep them reliable.2.0% · e.g. We The Flywheel | 2.0% | 5 | +1.3 |
| 18 | Product DesignerDesigns how a product works and looks, from research to the final screen.2.0% · e.g. Smarkets | 2.0% | 5 | -2.0 |
| 19 | Developer AdvocateRepresents developers to a company and the company to developers: docs, demos, talks.2.0% · e.g. Runway | 2.0% | 5 | -1.3 |
| 20 | DevOps EngineerAutomates builds, deploys and infrastructure; the title that took over from sysadmin.1.6% · e.g. Open Education Applications / Neon | 1.6% | 4 | -0.1 |
| 21 | Research ScientistDesigns and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.1.6% · e.g. G-Research | 1.6% | 4 | +0.6 |
| 22 | Solutions EngineerThe technical half of a sale: demos, proofs of concept and integration help.1.6% · e.g. NetBird | 1.6% | 4 | +0.6 |
| 23 | AI Product ManagerA product manager for model-powered products, fluent in evals and model behaviour.0.80% · e.g. WorkHero | 0.80% | 2 | +0.5 |
| 24 | Robotics EngineerBuilds the perception, planning and control software that lets robots and autonomous vehicles sense the world and act in it.0.80% · an example posting | 0.80% | 2 | +0.8 |
| 25 | Robotics Software EngineerWrites the software that runs a robot or autonomous vehicle, such as control loops, path planning and robot skills, tested on the hardware.0.80% · e.g. Valstad Shipworks | 0.80% | 2 | +0.8 |
| 26 | Applied AI EngineerTurns frontier models into working products for specific customers or use cases.0.80% · e.g. Cora AI | 0.80% | 2 | -0.5 |
| 27 | MLOps EngineerRuns the training, serving and monitoring infrastructure that ML teams depend on.0.80% · e.g. Prior Labs | 0.80% | 2 | -0.2 |
| 28 | AI TutorWrites and grades data that teaches a model a language or a subject; a model-training role, not teaching people.0.40% · e.g. Brilliant.org | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |
| 29 | Head of DataLeads a company's data team: analytics, data science and data engineering.0.40% · e.g. DuckDuckGo | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |
| 30 | Data AnalystAnswers business questions with SQL, dashboards and spreadsheets.0.40% · e.g. National Association of Realtors | 0.40% | 1 | +0.1 |
| 31 | Applied ScientistResearch methods pointed at a product problem; Amazon made the title mainstream.0.40% · e.g. Prior Labs | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |
| 32 | AI ScientistBuilds and trains new AI models for one field, such as biology or enterprise data, from research methods to the models a product relies on.0.40% · e.g. Xaira Therapeutics | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |
| 33 | Design EngineerHalf designer, half front-end engineer: prototypes and ships polished interfaces.0.40% · e.g. Odin | 0.40% | 1 | -3.3 |
| 34 | Head of AILeads the AI or ML group below the C-suite: VP, director or head.0.40% · an example posting | 0.40% | 1 | +0.4 |