I'm still a student, I have a few questions:

-What tech skills sets do you have? Do you need a MS/PhD at your level? If not, does it help?

In school we learn the standard algorithms/data structures material, but I want to expand my horizons and begin learning what is applicable to industry.

I am very curious to learn what someone at your level has skills in. I'd like to pick up something not taught in school and begin hacking away on a project that will help me... which leads to my next question

-What are good beginner resources/tutorials you recommend to learn these skill sets? Are there any good projects you can point me to?

-Just curious. Does "550k with a roughly 55/45 equity/cash split" mean you make ~247,000 base + ~302,500 in stock options? I am not too familiar with how compensation is broken down.

Not going to talk about my specific skills (throwaway account).

The algorithms stuff is useful. More useful than it seems. It comes up often in many engineering jobs. Perhaps more importantly at your stage in life, it will get you an internship.

Do internships. If you miss the one you really want, think hard about why, then try again. Internships are the best place to start into my next piece of advice.

Specialize in something valuable while you're in school or once you start into your career. Jobs I might look for if I were entering the work force today:

- Image processing or other noisy data handling.

- Robotics, especially something requiring interdisciplinary skills like control theory.

- Deep learning techniques are all the rage; you'll be much more useful if you understand how they work and can build novel topologies. Being taken seriously here will likely require a portfolio (maybe graduate work).

- Systems programming is an unending hellscape of horrible problems. Some people seem to enjoy it.

- If you have a knack for it, security. It takes a certain deviousness to think of new ways to misuse things. It takes a wizard to do something like Meltdown and Spectre.

It doesn't really matter what you become a domain expert in as long as it's valuable. It does matter that you don't treat "domain expert" as a fixed target.

In terms of extracurricular work, find an open source project that's got engagement from companies with lots of senior people (Kubernetes would be a good example, it has many very talented people working on it). Fix open bugs. Fix the onboarding experience. Start with trivial things and go from there. Don't get dismayed when you end up with hundreds of review comments, that's how you learn.

Regarding compensation, the split is approximate. The cash is both salary and an annual bonus paid out in January. The stock is actual stock, not options, so every month some number of Google shares show up in my brokerage.

Could you say more about why robotics today? It has always seemed very mature and saturated to me. I went into the automotive/manufacturing industry after getting graduate degrees in controls and recently shifted toward software and simulation work at the same company. What business problems are out there right now creating new demand for expertise in this area?

I think we're entering a new generation of controlled machines. Aerial drones, in particular, have found a staggering number of commercial and industrial uses, and many of them are operating under constraints that require bespoke platform designs to minimize weight while meeting requirements. Aquatic drones also seem to be coming into fashion. At the "that's a bit large to call it a robot" end of the spectrum, I'd put SpaceX and their auto-landing rockets in the same category (not to mention the drone ships that provide the stable landing platforms!)

It provides exposure to embedded systems, likely involves caring about communication protocols, sensors, etc. It might involve hard real-time constraints, and if you're really lucky it will also involve dealing with noisy data and maybe even a taste of applied machine learning.

That said, I could believe that all of the fun work is being tackled above the entry level.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Excellent advice.

Thanks for answering the previous person's questions; your answers were very helpful. Can you talk about how long it takes most people to reach staff level (or how long it took you)?

At what level do most engineers plateau at Google (meaning most people are unable to go past it)?

I came into Google as Senior with about six years experience at another large tech company (where I'd also made senior recently).

Senior (one level below Staff) is deemed "career level," and if you just want to build stuff it's a good place to stop. Staff involves a much more substantial leadership and coordination component, and that requires both the skill and desire to take on that sort of work.

Is Staff SWE different from regular SWE? What's the difference?

Iirc, staff SWE is Google's equivalent of Principal Engineer.

I think Google has principal engineers as well - a staff engineer at Google probably is equivalent to a principal engineer at most companies though.

For someone not working in tech, what is the difference between an engineer and a principal engineer?

It (staff) is a level, one past senior engineer.

The difference is that senior engineers do something resembling engineering. When not attending meetings, I turn coffee into emails and Google docs.

> The difference is that senior engineers do something resembling engineering. When not attending meetings, I turn coffee into emails and Google docs.

I like you.

The Principal has a very distinguished and widely-recognized track record of achievement.

What's interesting here is the social dimension of this. It's not enough that you are competent and have achievements. They key is that your achievements are recognized socially.

principal engineer is when you want to give someone more salary but they dont wanna be a manager

Hats off to you sir! half a mill in total compensation is amazing. That's doctor money for much less of the time in school.

Also usually comes with an entire childhood of learning in computers, whereas learning to be a doctor really doesn't start in earnest until med school.

i fail to really understand algorithms so i think support roles is all i will ever muster -- still gotta give kudos where it's due. And I agree, a lifetime spent in computing is what i did too, when kids were out playing i was building a 486.

how long have you been working in the industry already?

I have approximately 9 years of industry experience, following a BS and MS.