In the European companies they are not. From my experience (UK Financial Services primarily), they are equivalent to a US Staff Engineer with authority over Design and Implementation. Typically looking after a team or two of engineers of various levels of experience.
There's also a broad amount of "socialising" the design/system internally to generate "buy-in" across the organisation. Which is the tedious bit for me, but hey, the money is good.
There's also a broad amount of "socialising" the design/system internally to generate "buy-in" across the organisation. Which is the tedious bit for me, but hey, the money is good.