On the role of Distinguished Engineer and CTO Mindset
For the past four months, I have been working on my Wharton Executive CTO Program. There is no new content to learn or assignment to do this week, which means it’s a good opportunity to reflect on progress.
I am a Distinguished Engineer at ADP, a Fortune 500 technology services company. Today, I am one of four in a technology organization of about 10,000. It is a privilege and honor to be in this role. I worked hard to earn this title, and I am working hard to live up to it.
Across the tech industry, the Distinguished Engineer (DE) title applies to top individual-contributor ranks. These roles are scarce – typically only a tiny fraction of a company’s engineers (often <1%). For example, IBM reported 388 Distinguished Engineers among ~195,000 technical staff in 2005 (IBM distinguishes engineers - Nextgov/FCW) (~0.2%), and internal sources note only a handful of such roles at Salesforce (6 DEs in 2018 (Hierarchy in salesforce | Software Engineering Career - Blind))
Common expectations of DEs include technical vision, architecture, mentoring, and innovation rather than managing large teams. For example, Salesforce’s newest DE talks about “shaping products and technology that span clouds” and focusing on areas like IoT and AI across the company (Meet Salesforce’s Newest Distinguished Engineer, Donovan Schneider - Salesforce Engineering Blog). Capital One’s description of a DE is broadly applicable: DEs “focus on building the best tech” and solving core “technical problems”, driving innovation without taking on people-management (How to have an innovative tech career with opportunities for growth).
At Microsoft, Distinguished Engineers remain hands-on coders/architects at the executive level. As one early DE (Mark Lucovsky) explained, earning DE status means Microsoft formally recognizes an IC’s impact “as important as a VP managing 1,000 people.” The DE title gives no new budget or staff but signifies executive-level influence (Microsoft Recognizes and Rewards "Distinguished Engineers" - Stories).
DEs have peer-level influence with directors, senior engineers, and managers. They do not manage teams but lead technical vision across teams or divisions. Their power is based on influence, credibility, and track record, not positional authority.
The structural, institutional support for career development is no longer available at the DE level, as the DE themselves must create such support for others. In researching how to grow and fulfill my DE obligations, I realized that a DE role requires a CTO mindset — and could naturally evolve into a CTO role at a smaller company (or, more broadly, a CTO mindset role), something I aspire to one day.
Four months into the Wharton Executive CTO program, it reinforces my intuitive knowledge by providing structured validation. It strengthens my confidence that my understanding of my role as DE, my field, and my ideas are well-founded and accurate. The program exposes me to industry peers, an assigned executive coach, and other networking opportunities.
Here is a sample of the topics we have studied, which I highlighted as especially applicable to my career as a DE:
For the next phase of my training, I selected electives related to communication skills and executive presence. The most remarkable aspect of this program is that the skills I learned almost immediately apply to my role as DE.
Whether or not you have structural and institutional support for your role is irrelevant. As a DE, there are no ladders to climb. You own your platform and create platforms for others, and this is the most significant value of the Wharton Executive CTO program to me.

I am a Distinguished Engineer at ADP, a Fortune 500 technology services company. Today, I am one of four in a technology organization of about 10,000. It is a privilege and honor to be in this role. I worked hard to earn this title, and I am working hard to live up to it.
Across the tech industry, the Distinguished Engineer (DE) title applies to top individual-contributor ranks. These roles are scarce – typically only a tiny fraction of a company’s engineers (often <1%). For example, IBM reported 388 Distinguished Engineers among ~195,000 technical staff in 2005 (IBM distinguishes engineers - Nextgov/FCW) (~0.2%), and internal sources note only a handful of such roles at Salesforce (6 DEs in 2018 (Hierarchy in salesforce | Software Engineering Career - Blind))
Common expectations of DEs include technical vision, architecture, mentoring, and innovation rather than managing large teams. For example, Salesforce’s newest DE talks about “shaping products and technology that span clouds” and focusing on areas like IoT and AI across the company (Meet Salesforce’s Newest Distinguished Engineer, Donovan Schneider - Salesforce Engineering Blog). Capital One’s description of a DE is broadly applicable: DEs “focus on building the best tech” and solving core “technical problems”, driving innovation without taking on people-management (How to have an innovative tech career with opportunities for growth).
At Microsoft, Distinguished Engineers remain hands-on coders/architects at the executive level. As one early DE (Mark Lucovsky) explained, earning DE status means Microsoft formally recognizes an IC’s impact “as important as a VP managing 1,000 people.” The DE title gives no new budget or staff but signifies executive-level influence (Microsoft Recognizes and Rewards "Distinguished Engineers" - Stories).
DEs have peer-level influence with directors, senior engineers, and managers. They do not manage teams but lead technical vision across teams or divisions. Their power is based on influence, credibility, and track record, not positional authority.
The structural, institutional support for career development is no longer available at the DE level, as the DE themselves must create such support for others. In researching how to grow and fulfill my DE obligations, I realized that a DE role requires a CTO mindset — and could naturally evolve into a CTO role at a smaller company (or, more broadly, a CTO mindset role), something I aspire to one day.
Four months into the Wharton Executive CTO program, it reinforces my intuitive knowledge by providing structured validation. It strengthens my confidence that my understanding of my role as DE, my field, and my ideas are well-founded and accurate. The program exposes me to industry peers, an assigned executive coach, and other networking opportunities.
Here is a sample of the topics we have studied, which I highlighted as especially applicable to my career as a DE:
- Understanding business and technology strategy,
- Competition and markets,
- Vision for AI,
- Platform business model and platform ecosystems,
- Evaluating strategic acquisitions,
- Maintaining technical readiness to integrate blockchain capabilities,
- Supporting global and distributed teams,
- Data privacy and ethics as platform differentiators
For the next phase of my training, I selected electives related to communication skills and executive presence. The most remarkable aspect of this program is that the skills I learned almost immediately apply to my role as DE.
Whether or not you have structural and institutional support for your role is irrelevant. As a DE, there are no ladders to climb. You own your platform and create platforms for others, and this is the most significant value of the Wharton Executive CTO program to me.