What is the difference between these senior software engineer titles?

Posted by stackoverflowuser2010 on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by stackoverflowuser2010
Published on 2011-02-10T18:27:00Z Indexed on 2011/02/10 23:33 UTC
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I'm currently a senior research software engineer at a large company and am being offered a "senior staff engineer" position somewhere else. I am not sure if the new position's title conveys a sideways move or an advancement.

So, all other things being roughly equal (salary, domain of expertise, etc.), what is the external difference between these software engineer titles (in general and regardless of any particular company, if possible):

senior engineer
senior research engineer
senior staff engineer
member of technical staff
principal engineer

Edit: Let me elaborate on "member of technical staff" since it's kind of uncommon. I think it's a high title, commonly associated with research. I know that Oracle, VMWare, and the old Bell Labs have these titles. See: Member of Technical Staff . I know what it means, but I don't know how it stacks up against the other titles, which is why I asked.

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