Shadowing Practice: Every Level of Engineering in 15 Minutes - Learn English Speaking with Video

40 versus 400,000.

Same degree, different title.

Now, you know as well as I do that engineers make good money.

But believe me when I tell you there are levels to this.

Some are drowning in student debt, living paycheck to paycheck.

Some are barely pushing over the average salary.

And some make millions a year on top of more equity than you and I would know what to do with.

So today, we're going to lay out the rewards and responsibilities for each rung of the engineering career ladder, starting with a broke student at level zero,

going all the way up to one of one multi-millionaire CTOs.

And as always, we're giving you a real engineer's perspective on what this journey actually looks like, what you earn, what you do,

in my experience, on just how hard it is to move up.

And on that note, I'm willing to bet that you can't answer these two simple questions about engineering.

Fewer than 38% of my viewers got them both right.

Question one, what is the most common first job title for engineering graduates?

And two, how much can a principal engineer make at a top tech company?

Hold on to your answers, we'll come back to them.

Now let's get right into it.

I'm Engineer Joe, welcome to Engineering Insiders.

We start today with level zero, a student.

The bottom rung starts with a young engineer living in a dorm,

microwaving ramen, slamming caffeine, and desperately trying to figure out how to solve a three-page triple integral without going insane.

This is the standard night as an undergraduate, or at least it was for me.

Very broke, thousands of dollars in debt, struggling through late-night homework and labs, and killing time with friends in the dorms.

A simple life, one without many responsibilities besides passing your classes.

Now, these students don't even know what they're gonna have for breakfast tomorrow, let alone if they'll be in that minority that actually end up graduating with an engineering degree.

But they do know that they are dirt broke.

Most students didn't have jobs, but I worked at a few restaurants and then became a tutor to make a few bucks during my undergrad.

But I, like many other students, was thrown deep into debt.

In this tough but exciting stage of the ladder, the average American student is about $29,000 in debt.

But what do they have to show for their hard work and monstrous debt?

Well, most students don't make much money, if any.

So the rewards of this stage come with progressing through school, passing crazy hard classes, and building out their resumes.

Not necessarily monetary income.

But do you know what our undergrad saving grace is?

Internships!

Which brings us up to level 1, an engineering intern.

Our students growing up fast and is already in a real world engineering firm.

But do interns actually have real responsibilities or do they just grab coffee for other engineers?

Also, how much do they make?

Now we'll get to the uneven intern salaries, but first our undergrad has to earn it.

The internship can be very meaningful, full of real, stakeholder-impacting engineering work like testing satellite hardware,

3D modeling robotic arms, or running thermal simulations on jet engines.

It also can be extremely disheartening, slow, and downright boring.

In my experience this has more to do with the stage of the company rather than anything else.

For example, I've had friends land internships with massive defense companies and have terrible times.

Only doing things like updating documentation, very minor firmware or software changes.

Basically just following around other engineers and asking, begging for things to do.

On the other hand, if you join a startup, there will be no shortage of tasks.

Everyone is basically working five different jobs at once, and you could be doing real design engineering on very key facets of the company.

And real quick, a reminder to subscribe if you learn anything in this video.

It's free and really helps us out.

Thank you for your time.

Now the reward here is the experience you gain

that ultimately aids you in the quest of landing a full-time position later down the road.

But some internships can pay pretty freaking well, with the lowest coming in at $9,000 over a summer and the highest over $24,000 in the same summer.

Now just like our student, most of this money is spent on rent and other day-to-day expenses.

Maybe our engineer has a little bit of savings, but that student loan is pretty much still the exact same.

But I think our engineer has something up his sleeve.

Now he has some real world work experience, understand how the industry works a little bit, and has now graduated and is ready to take on a full-time role,

coming up on level two of today's ladder.

Which brings us right back to the first question I asked earlier.

What do we think is the most popular title after graduation?

The correct answer is C, an engineering intern, which 77% of my audience answered correctly, so good job to all of you.

If you're hired at a company with good company culture, you can find yourself in sports leagues with your coworkers, meeting a ton of cool new people and not really having much stress on your shoulders.

You're being introduced to one or two projects

and slowly starting to make impacts on testing new versions of products

or doing some of the more repetitive tasks that higher level engineers shouldn't waste their time on.

And oh yeah, you're getting paid.

Here's a few salaries for entry level engineers.

Not a bad deal in my opinion.

Personally, I started out with 80k salary right out of my

electrical engineering degree with a few healthy bonuses to sweeten the deal.

But this honeymoon phase does not last forever.

Before you know it, you're gaining responsibilities, starting to work late when deadlines are looming and actually being relied on to produce results.

Ugh!

All jokes aside, it is honestly very rewarding to gain responsibilities and be genuinely helpful to your project and team.

But naturally, with more With more responsibilities comes a new level of our career ladder.

Level 3 usually comes about the time you see an entire project from start to finish.

Anywhere between a year and like three years in, you'll start pushing to become a mid-level engineer.

Which by the way in the industry is usually just called level 2 engineer, but that doesn't fit the levels I laid out so ignore that.

Now this is the level where things get more real.

There's no hand holding and you're expected to start taking ownership of entire subsystems or projects more junior engineering.

You're now making impactful decisions, reviewing the work of interns and pushing the project forward even if no one tells you exactly how.

This freedom can be stressful but ultimately is pretty fun to work around.

Now depending on your company and performance, this is the phase where you start owning features or landing design reviews.

It's not uncommon to start mentoring interns or newer hires at this point too.

And guess what?

The pay bump reflects that added responsibility.

Now this is where I'm currently at in my career, landing code in our company repository, designing electronics boards with tight deadlines,

planning and executing entire test campaigns for satellite hardware, and mentoring interns on their tasks, results, and direction.

And honestly, I'm enjoying it.

Now engineers can stay in the stage for some two to five more years and then start pushing for level four, senior engineering, one of the most flexible,

respected, and well-paid roles in the industry.

But real quick, here's what I'm going to do for you.

If you have any questions you want to ask me, check out our discord.

I'm frequently in there, but no one really takes me up on this.

I started this channel to help students and I want to connect with more of you.

So hop in our discord, ask a question in general, and I'll get back to you.

Now that's all.

100

Let's get back to the video.

101

And we're at level four senior engineering.

102

By this point, you've been in the industry for around five to eight years and people know who you are.

103

You've shipped products, led critical efforts, and handled those Friday night emergencies that somehow always happen right before launch.

104

You're not just building anymore, you're guiding.

105

The senior engineers around me start to influence company direction, make calls on our satellite specs, make multi-million dollar design decisions, and negotiate product terms with vendors.

106

And in many organizations, they're invited to early product meetings, budgeting sessions, or even patent discussions.

107

And boy, are they paid for it.

108

But all this comes at a cost.

109

Your hairline, er, I mean your stress level.

110

You are now measured by how well you lead others, de-risk projects, and influence results.

111

It's not a small responsibility.

112

And some engineers plateau here forever.

113

Which honestly isn't a bad thing.

114

Senior roles offer excellent pay, autonomy, and flexibility.

115

If you're happy staying hands-on, you can ride this role for decades.

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But if you're not satisfied here, it doesn't end.

117

The next big leap is becoming someone who defines architecture, strategy, and long-term company vision.

118

This would be a lead or staff engineer.

119

At this point, you can be anywhere from 8 to 20 years into your career.

120

You're trusted and respected, and you're basically the person your co-workers come to when everything is on fire.

121

And by the way, the titles can vary.

122

It can be lead engineer, staff engineer, technical specialist, or even distinguished in some companies.

123

But the essence is the same.

124

You are driving major decisions and systems.

125

You can picture it like this.

126

If a senior engineer is responsible for thermal regulation of of a battery system in a car,

127

staff engineers could be responsible for the thermal regulation for the entire vehicle across HVAC, battery, and software teams.

128

And a key note that at this stage, we start to see a larger fan out of engineering expertise.

129

Let me explain.

130

In senior engineering and below, most engineers are very successful living in a single vertical.

131

But once you reach staff engineering and beyond, you're required to pull from a wider range of knowledge, which only comes from years of studying and expertise.

132

And another thing, this role can be pretty lonely.

133

You might be the only staff engineer in your entire org chart, helping chart the future while still keeping a keen eye over the trenches.

134

But this high responsibility definitely comes with a worthwhile salary.

135

And if you think that's nice, just wait until you see what happens when you start managing people, budgets, and entire engineering organizations.

136

What I'm referring to is level six, engineering management, which to me is similar to level five, but they're really just a divergence in career paths.

137

You see, around the senior-ish engineer level, you'll face a fork in the road.

138

Do you want to more deeply develop your engineering skills or do you want to start developing your management skills,

139

working less in the lab and more in meetings and with people?

140

Now, this engineering management really does have levels in itself, but for the sake of the video, We're averaging it all into one.

141

But what do they do?

142

Well, they hire, onboard, retain talent, resolve conflicts, conduct performance reviews, career development plans, one-on-ones, and a whole lot more things.

143

Which, if you're a people's person and believe in the company, you might really enjoy.

144

And if you're not, well, then you can take the technical depth route.

145

But in case you are interested, here are the salaries.

146

Now, do you remember our second question regarding principal engineering salaries?

147

It's about time to see if you answered correctly, like 49% of my audience did.

148

And on principal engineers, they're different.

149

They define the principles behind engineering products.

150

It's actually pretty funny.

151

At one of my previous companies, they had very actionable bullet points for literally every type of engineer, like massive paragraphs describing what you have to do to become that level,

152

but when you got to staff engineer, the highest level, it doesn't say anything at all except requirements to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

153

And in case that doesn't make it super clear, these engineers are rare.

154

They're the top 1% of technical individual contributors in most companies.

155

And you might guess there's probably only going to be one principal engineer per department or none at all.

156

We're talking company will literally wither if you leave level of engineer.

157

These are engineers who don't manage people, but somehow guide entire organizations.

158

They define the architecture, not just for one product, but for the future of the company's technology.

159

If senior engineers are expected to own features and staff engineers own systems, engineers own outcomes across disciplines, across timelines.

160

So how much do they make?

161

If you guessed a lot, you'd be right.

162

But how much can a principal engineer at a top tech company make?

163

Now, if you guessed C, $600,000 a year or more, then you'd be right.

164

Now remember, this is just salary, not equity, bonuses, equity, perks,

165

or the massive and generational amounts of company equity that these engineers bring home.

166

Now you might be thinking, how could there possibly be another level?

167

He just mentioned equity three freaking times.

168

But buckle up, there are two more, the first of which being Vice President of Engineering or in smaller organizations, Director of Engineering.

169

This is where you're not just managing engineers, you're managing entire departments.

170

You've probably got managers reporting to you and they've got managers and engineers under them.

171

We are talking Steve Wozniak magnitude of engineer here.

172

You're setting roadmaps, defining long-term goals, balancing technical debt against business urgency,

173

and making calls that affect hundreds or thousands of people and tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.

174

To make it clear, this role is very far removed from how do we solve this bug and much,

175

much closer to how do we scale the company from 50 to 500 engineers without breaking everything.

176

You will still be deeply technical, but your workday is likely full of budget planning, cross-functional alignment, hiring strategies, and high-level performance reviews.

177

And depending on the industry and company stage, directors and VPs can easily make $300,000 to $700,000 or more a year.

178

And I don't know if you saw the news, but if you're the leading AI engineer in the world, you could make $100 million freaking dollars with a sign-on bonus, which is, by the way,

179

the largest engineering poach of all time.

180

Now it's time for the final boss.

181

You've been a staff, principal, or director for a number of years and want to be a major executive or start your own startup.

182

What does that look like?

183

Well, only about .0001% of people in the world can answer that question truthfully, but I do know that it doesn't involve a lot of sleep.

184

At this point, if you made it to the 110,000th percentile, you have a very deep knowledge of your technology and business space.

185

You also have a crazy intuition of what products are

186

or aren't worth delegating your hundreds or thousands of employees to work on.

187

The decisions you make will impact what markets the company enters, what products get built, how millions of dollars are spent every week,

188

and ultimately whether the company survives or dies.

189

But how much do you make?

190

This very much depends on what stage of company you're at and, well, if the company even survives.

191

Startup founders and CTOs might not make a ton of money right off the bat, but will have have more dollars in equity than drops of water in their infinity pools.

192

We're talking tens or hundreds of millions when the company decides to exit, but it's risky.

193

You could spend a decade building a company brick by brick for it to ultimately fall apart.

194

On the other hand, tech and big tech CTOs can make well a lot also with a lot of equity.

195

But where's the gamble in that?

196

Where's the fun?

197

Now you might have noticed we missed a very key point in this video.

198

Are these engineers actually happy?

199

Check out this video to find out.

200

And let me know which stage of engineering you're at in the comments below or join me in our discord, I'm happy to chat with you.

201

Now thanks for watching and happy engineering everybody!

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261 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Every Level of Engineering in 15 Minutes”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: engineer, engineering, student. This video has 201 sentences and 2799 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:35. The speaker talks fast, about 180 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
intern noun	/ˈɪntɝn/	A student or recent graduate who works in order to gain experience in their chosen field.
internship noun	/ˈɪntɜːnʃɪp/	A job taken by a student in order to learn a profession or trade.
ladder noun	/ˈlæd.ɚ/	A frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened rungs (cross strips or…
discord noun	/ˈdɪskɔɹd/	Lack of concord, agreement, harmony; disaccord.
undergrad noun		An undergraduate.
startup noun	/ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/	The act or process of starting a process or machine.
thermal adjective	/ˈθɜːməl/	Pertaining to heat or temperature.
paycheck noun	/ˈpeɪ.t͡ʃɛk/	A periodic payment, usually in the form of a paper check, received by an employee from an employer for work performed.
mentor noun	/ˈmɛn.tɔː/	A wise and trusted counselor or teacher.
expertise noun	/ˌɛkspɜːˈtiːz/	Great skill or knowledge in a particular field or hobby.
deadline noun	/ˈdɛdˌlaɪn/	A time limit in the form of a date on or before which something must be completed.
actionable adjective	/ˈæk.ʃə.nə.bəl/	Able to be acted on; able to be used as the basis for taking action.
dormitory noun	/ˈdɔɹ.mɪˌtɔɹ.i/	A room containing a number of beds (and often some other furniture and/or utilities) for sleeping, often applied to student and backpacker accommodation of…
spectacles noun	/ˈspɛktəkl̩z/	A pair of lenses set in a frame worn on the nose and ears in order to correct deficiencies in eyesight or to ornament the face.
buckle noun	/ˈbʌkəl/	A metal clasp with a hinged tongue or a spike through which a belt or strap is passed and penetrated by the tongue or spike, in order to fasten the ends of the…

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
get back to verb		Return to (an activity)
lay out verb	/ˌleɪ ˈaʊt/	To expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase.
build out verb		To develop or expand (a system, structure, project, etc.).
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
fall apart verb		To disintegrate, to break into pieces.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

It's free and really helps us out.
What do we think is the most popular title after graduation?
Let's get back to the video.
You're not just building anymore, you're guiding.
If you guessed a lot, you'd be right.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you join a startup, there will be · If you guessed a lot, you'd be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was thrown · is spent · being introduced
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has now graduated · you've been · You've shipped
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	someone who defines · bonus, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 69 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thermal /ˈθɜːməl/, worthwhile /ˌwɜː(ɹ)θˈwaɪl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: internship /ˈɪntɜːnʃɪp/, actionable /ˈæk.ʃə.nə.bəl/, intuition /ˌɪn.tjuːˈɪʃ.ən/, distinguish /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/, shortage /ˈʃɔː(ɹ)tɪd͡ʒ/
Long words — get the stress right: actionable /ˈæk.ʃə.nə.bəl/, dormitory /ˈdɔɹ.mɪˌtɔɹ.i/, intuition /ˌɪn.tjuːˈɪʃ.ən/, repetitive /ɹɪˈpɛtɪtɪv/, contributor /kənˈtɹɪb.jə.tɚ/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like intern, internship, ladder.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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