This is similar to what we had, a few years before Google, at a serious software engineering company. Technician I, Technician II, Engineer I, Engineer II, Sr.

This is similar to what we had, a few years before Google, at a serious software engineering company. Technician I, Technician II, Engineer I, Engineer II, Sr. Engineer. If you made it to Sr. Engineer, that was as high as most anyone could go. People at that point were focused on the work, not on ladder-climbing, AFAIK. Though there were maybe a couple people who I knew were Principal Engineers. One was brought into the advanced R&D group at that level, as a rare domain expert and methodology expert, and would be key to whether the complex next-gen flagship product did what customers needed. (Incidentally, that person was also literally a Navy SEAL, which is another label obtained only rarely.)