Technical fellow vs principal engineer

The differences between technical fellows and principal engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 1-2 years to become a technical fellow, becoming a principal engineer takes usually requires 4-6 years. Additionally, a principal engineer has an average salary of $130,213, which is higher than the $65,088 average annual salary of a technical fellow.

The top three skills for a technical fellow include SQL, statistical analysis and intellectual property. The most important skills for a principal engineer are java, architecture, and python.

Technical fellow vs principal engineer overview

	Technical Fellow	Principal Engineer
Yearly salary	$65,088	$130,213
Hourly rate	$31.29	$62.60
Growth rate	5%	2%
Number of jobs	77,696	312,683
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Average age	43	41
Years of experience	2	6

Technical fellow vs principal engineer salary

Technical fellows and principal engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Technical Fellow	Principal Engineer
Average salary	$65,088	$130,213
Salary range	Between $41,000 And $101,000	Between $95,000 And $177,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Mateo, CA
Highest paying state	New Jersey	California
Best paying company	FCA US LLC	Grubhub
Best paying industry	Automotive	Telecommunication

Differences between technical fellow and principal engineer education

There are a few differences between a technical fellow and a principal engineer in terms of educational background:

	Technical Fellow	Principal Engineer
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 63%	Bachelor's Degree, 66%
Most common major	Computer Science	Electrical Engineering
Most common college	University of Pennsylvania	Michigan Technological University

Technical fellow vs principal engineer demographics

Here are the differences between technical fellows' and principal engineers' demographics:

	Technical Fellow	Principal Engineer
Average age	43	41
Gender ratio	Male, 60.6% Female, 39.4%	Male, 92.6% Female, 7.4%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 8.0% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 11.7% Asian, 13.9% White, 61.0% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%	Black or African American, 3.1% Unknown, 4.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.8% Asian, 16.6% White, 67.9% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1%
LGBT Percentage	9%	5%

Differences between technical fellow and principal engineer duties and responsibilities

Technical fellow example responsibilities.

Manage, support, and analyze efforts relate to international and domestic climate change-relate issues.
Manage business-technology relationships - responsible for facilitating actionable requirements gathering, design & architecture, implementation, and build to operate.
Develop and maintain relationships and partnerships with customers, stakeholders, peers, partners and direct reports.
Image lab machines both mac and pc, security, networking, building computer labs, virus removal.
Prepare patients for surgery including positioning and prepping, SCD and TED hose applications, and inserting Foley catheters.
Design and implement stored procedures, functions, views to merge new data with existing data in data warehouse using PL/SQL.

Principal engineer example responsibilities.

Develop test plans and procedures, and lead the test effort on Windows.CE porting.
Provide analytical direction, reasoning, and manage lipid extraction experiments done as a team.
Identify, develop and implement action items to manage & improve software releases and develop guidelines in JavaScript coding.
Lead a group of 9 engineers responsible for technology development for handling electronic packages (computer CPU) during HVM.
Provide consultation to the ISO team in achieving certification, and enable company to win many more deals as a result.
Create process control systems in LabView.

Technical fellow vs principal engineer skills

Common technical fellow skills

SQL, 13%
Statistical Analysis, 11%
Intellectual Property, 11%
Photoshop, 10%
R, 10%
Java, 7%

Common principal engineer skills

Java, 13%
Architecture, 8%
Python, 8%
Software Development, 4%
Azure, 4%
Linux, 3%