Titlesby GlyphWho is hiring, November 2026
207 postings in the Hacker News thread mention 43 tracked titles; the most mentioned is Full Stack Engineer, in 11% 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.11% · e.g. Kanmon | 11% | 23 | -8.2 |
| 2 | Product EngineerA full-stack engineer who owns product decisions too, not just tickets.8.7% · e.g. myDataValue | 8.7% | 18 | +3.4 |
| 3 | Staff EngineerThe senior individual-contributor track: technical leadership without managing people.8.2% · e.g. Stream | 8.2% | 17 | -0.2 |
| 4 | Product ManagerDecides what gets built and why, and gets it shipped.7.2% · e.g. PostHog | 7.2% | 15 | +0.3 |
| 5 | Machine Learning EngineerTrains, ships and maintains machine learning models in production.5.3% · e.g. Shepherd | 5.3% | 11 | -1.1 |
| 6 | Founding EngineerOne of a startup's first engineers, usually with equity and a wide remit.5.3% · e.g. Mesmer | 5.3% | 11 | -1.3 |
| 7 | AI EngineerA software engineer who builds products on top of models rather than training them.4.8% · e.g. United Risk | 4.8% | 10 | -1.3 |
| 8 | 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.4.3% · e.g. Reducto | 4.3% | 9 | +3.3 |
| 9 | Data ScientistUses statistics and models to answer questions with data; the "sexiest job" of 2012.4.3% · e.g. DuckDuckGo | 4.3% | 9 | +1.8 |
| 10 | DevOps EngineerAutomates builds, deploys and infrastructure; the title that took over from sysadmin.3.9% · e.g. Simple Analytics | 3.9% | 8 | +0.8 |
| 11 | Security EngineerFinds and fixes weaknesses in systems, code and cloud accounts.3.9% · e.g. Namespace | 3.9% | 8 | +1.4 |
| 12 | Site Reliability EngineerKeeps production up with software: on-call, SLOs and automation; Google's term.3.4% · e.g. PostHog | 3.4% | 7 | -0.4 |
| 13 | Engineering ManagerManages a team of engineers: hiring, delivery and careers.3.4% · e.g. Justworks | 3.4% | 7 | +0.9 |
| 14 | Research EngineerWrites the code that makes research run: training runs, experiments, infrastructure.2.4% · e.g. PostHog | 2.4% | 5 | +1.9 |
| 15 | Product DesignerDesigns how a product works and looks, from research to the final screen.2.4% · an example posting | 2.4% | 5 | -2.9 |
| 16 | Platform EngineerBuilds the internal platform other engineers deploy on: clusters, CI, paved roads.2.4% · e.g. Ledgebrook | 2.4% | 5 | -2.7 |
| 17 | Research ScientistDesigns and runs experiments to push what models can do; usually a PhD role.1.9% · e.g. FutureSearch | 1.9% | 4 | +1.1 |
| 18 | Solutions EngineerThe technical half of a sale: demos, proofs of concept and integration help.1.9% · e.g. Quantum Rise | 1.9% | 4 | +0.4 |
| 19 | AI Product ManagerA product manager for model-powered products, fluent in evals and model behaviour.1.4% · e.g. PostHog | 1.4% | 3 | +1.1 |
| 20 | Data EngineerBuilds the pipelines, warehouses and platforms that move and store data.1.4% · e.g. Ledgebrook | 1.4% | 3 | -3.9 |
| 21 | Agent EngineerBuilds LLM agents that plan and call tools, and the harnesses that keep them reliable.1.4% · e.g. Curai | 1.4% | 3 | +0.6 |
| 22 | Member of Technical StaffA deliberately flat title from Bell Labs, revived by AI labs for engineers and researchers alike.1.0% · an example posting | 1.0% | 2 | +0.7 |
| 23 | Computer Vision EngineerBuilds models and systems that read images and video, from robots to retail.1.0% · e.g. Duranta | 1.0% | 2 | +0.7 |
| 24 | Developer AdvocateRepresents developers to a company and the company to developers: docs, demos, talks.1.0% · e.g. SerpApi | 1.0% | 2 | -1.0 |
| 25 | Design EngineerHalf designer, half front-end engineer: prototypes and ships polished interfaces.1.0% · e.g. Scholarly | 1.0% | 2 | -0.3 |
| 26 | Robotics EngineerBuilds the perception, planning and control software that lets robots and autonomous vehicles sense the world and act in it.1.0% · e.g. Beacon AI | 1.0% | 2 | +1.0 |
| 27 | Head of AILeads the AI or ML group below the C-suite: VP, director or head.0.50% · e.g. SwingVision | 0.50% | 1 | -0.5 |
| 28 | Applied AI EngineerTurns frontier models into working products for specific customers or use cases.0.50% · e.g. Lyra | 0.50% | 1 | +0.2 |
| 29 | Product Operations ManagerA professional who optimizes processes, data access, and alignment across product and operational teams.0.50% · an example posting | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 30 | Technical Product ManagerA product manager for platforms, APIs and developer products.0.50% · e.g. Sidekick Labs | 0.50% | 1 | -0.3 |
| 31 | GTM EngineerBuilds sales and marketing systems with data enrichment, automation and language models instead of adding headcount.0.50% · e.g. Fredrin | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 32 | Growth EngineerA software engineer focused on building tools, experiments, and features to drive user acquisition and retention.0.50% · e.g. Credit Genie | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 33 | AI Solutions ArchitectDesigns how a customer should use AI models and services, from architecture review to a working proof of concept.0.50% · e.g. Quantum Rise | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 34 | Deployment StrategistThe non-engineering half of a forward deployed team: scopes the customer problem and runs the deployment.0.50% · e.g. Silkline | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 35 | Cloud EngineerAn engineer responsible for designing, building, and maintaining cloud infrastructure and services.0.50% · an example posting | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 36 | Head of DataLeads a company's data team: analytics, data science and data engineering.0.50% · e.g. Scento | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 37 | Legal EngineerA lawyer who builds: turns legal workflows into prompts, evals and product for legal AI tools.0.50% · e.g. Perry | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 38 | MLOps EngineerRuns the training, serving and monitoring infrastructure that ML teams depend on.0.50% · e.g. Encube | 0.50% | 1 | -0.3 |
| 39 | Automation EngineerAn engineer who designs and implements automated systems and workflows to optimize technical processes.0.50% · e.g. Search Atlas | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 40 | AI Deployment EngineerDeploys and tunes an AI product or agent inside a customer's stack; a close cousin of the forward deployed engineer.0.50% · e.g. Oscilar.com | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 41 | Controls EngineerAn engineer who designs and manages control systems to automate mechanical and physical operations.0.50% · e.g. Nirvana Robotics | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 42 | Technical Support EngineerResolves complex customer technical issues and assists users with software platform troubleshooting.0.50% · e.g. NetBird | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |
| 43 | Applied ScientistResearch methods pointed at a product problem; Amazon made the title mainstream.0.50% · e.g. Prior Labs | 0.50% | 1 | +0.5 |