What's a Google Fellow?
And what does that translate to at Amazon or any of the other tech companies? Does Facebook or LinkedIn have this distinction?
I heard that Samsung has fellows too.
That's pretty bad ass.
At Amazon, they would be the equivalent of a distinguished engineer (VP level)
I think at Google they have VP level engineers, and Fellows is a separate category.
This is similar to how Dave Cutler is the only Senior Technical Fellow at Microsoft.
Microsoft has a several folks who have the Fellow title. I'm not sure where this title stand in comparison to a distinguished engineer though.
Technical Fellow (stock level 80+) is higher than Distinguished Engineer (stock level 70). TF is equivalent to a CVP, whereas DE is equivalent to a high level director on the management track (though it's certainly possible to be a non-director manager and still be level 70).
There is a title of LinkedIn fellow, but currently there is nobody with that title
Because we poached all of them
These titles are usually one of two things. In one, you have a working engineer who doesn't manage anyone but who needs a very high salary and prestige. In the other, you want to hire some industry luminary (Alan Kay, Linus Torvalds) for consultative and/or prestige reasons.
Distinguished engineer is sort of similar. But DEs still have day jobs. Apple used to have Apple Fellows but maybe not anymore?
Technical Fellow at Microsoft is roughly equivalent to Google Fellow. Distinguished Engineer is lower on the ladder at both companies.