At my previous company, I liked their ranking system. Basically, you moved up as you became responsible for larger and larger systems. A brand new junior empl

At my previous company, I liked their ranking system. Basically, you moved up as you became responsible for larger and larger systems. A brand new junior employee is responsible for very little--most of what they do is going to be reviewed by more experienced engineers. A senior engineer might be able to be tech lead a small month long project, a principal engineer might be responsible for a large subsystem, an architect would be responsible for an entire product. Finally a distinguished engineer (essentially a VP-level position, but on the tech side of things rather than the management side) would be responsible for the technical direction of the entire company and be a strong input to the overall design of brand new products.