Explore Jobs
Find Specific Jobs
Explore Careers
Explore Professions
Best Companies
Explore Companies
This question is about what a principal engineer does, what a senior engineer does, and principal engineer.
A principal engineer is a professional who oversees other engineers in different departments and contributes to multiple projects at one time, while a senior engineer is someone who often manages just one project or department.
A principal engineer always has many years of experience and training in a particular field of engineering or in multiple fields of engineering. They oversee and manage engineers in a specific department or in several different departments.
Leadership is a crucial component of a principal engineer's job. Some of their responsibilities include planning engineering strategies for a company, managing several departments and figuring out goals for each, and writing and managing engineering budgets.
Senior engineers lead one particular engineering department at a company. Some of their duties include creating reports and project proposals, presenting design and research to clients, advising other engineering staff, and managing projects.
Here are the key differences between a principal engineer and a senior engineer:
A principal engineer may oversee several different departments and projects at once
A senior engineer only leads and manages one engineering department
A principal engineer is higher in the hierarchy of a company than a senior engineer
Principal engineers may participate in creating or modifying company engineering budgets
Senior engineers do not have any duties concerning budgets
Principal engineers have higher salaries than senior engineers
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.