What is a Distinguished Engineer?

I have been asked this question many times and decided to put some thoughts down onto "paper".

Firstly some facts (as at time of writing): There are about 400 Distinguished Engineers (DEs) within IBM's global technical community of almost 200,000 people (of a total of almost 400,000 people employed by the organisation).

Being recognised as a DE is the top technical achievement in IBM apart from IBM Fellow.

A DE is a technical executive and is promoted to that position for outstanding technical contributions and leadership. There is no single career path to becoming a DE as every DE is unique. Some people are promoted to DE as a result of being prolific inventors or patent holder. Others are globally recognised experts in their respective fields, contributing to their clients' success and IBM's growth.

DEs are integral members of their units' executive teams, demonstrating leadership to these units and across the company by consulting with management on technical and business strategies and their implementation. They often have operational responsibilities for large, complex technical projects, and may have line management responsibility as appropriate.

So all DEs are unique but everyone has a passion for IBM, it's technology and it's people.

I myself was recognised as a DE in the early part of 2008, which was the realisation of a long-term goal and something that I will always value deeply.