8 ms·

Senior Engineers Reduce Risk

175 points by arohner 10y ago

arohner 10y ago
Great article. I really appreciate that the OP describes a more closed-form solution to what makes a senior engineer, rather than platitudes like "learn 5 languages". One nit I'd pick with it though is that many large and bureaucratic companies won't appreciate an engineer who decides it on them to fix hiring, culture, product marketing fit and marketing. If you find yourself in this position, it's time to move on to somewhere else that will. Typically, those companies are startups.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  The great frustration is that the longer you spend tilting at those windmills at large companies, the less likely you are to get a startup to actually hire you, since you are too "corporate" or "enterprisey".
  - Greenisus 10y ago
    That has never been true for me. I've been able to go from large companies to startups and vice versa without any trouble.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      Well, I haven't. Just last week I had DigitalOcean refuse to even talk to me because my experience was "too government/enterprise". I imagine the dozens of black holes at similar companies I have communicated into over the past years are for similar reasons.
      - spraak 10y ago
        Sounds like DigitalOcean is "too startup"
  - mavelikara 10y ago
    Startups which can afford to reject a candidate on these grounds are probably too late to join anyways? Something doesn't add up here.
  - crpatino 10y ago
    Don't VCs require more "enterprisey" people at later stages, when product discovery is done and operations/scaling up takes precedence?
    - tedmiston 10y ago
      The types of problems experienced in mid to late stage are definitely more relevant to someone with experience at ops and scale. Late stage startups or enterprise (the line blurs) are popular places to pick such talent, and for these needs specifically, Netflix is one popular source.
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    The reality of your comment varies widely by the stage of the startup. Pre-seed is a radically different animal than Series B.
- sulam 10y ago
  Honestly, our industry has such a love affair with engineering at this point that at many companies you can easily have an impact in these areas if you're senior enough. And by "senior enough" I don't mean having a big enough title. These groups are willing to collaborate with people who show honest interest and appreciation for the problems they're trying to solve and the roadblocks they hit while doing so. It may sound a little chicken and egg, but I think part of how senior people demonstrate their seniority is to successfully work outside their silo. Unfortunately many engineers fall into one of two traps: waiting for permission to do this kind of work or -- the flip side -- barging in without having a clear way to contribute.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
This captures the role quite well.
beat 10y ago
I'm reminded of an experience many years ago, when talking to a couple of other senior engineers about a talented but hotheaded young manager who couldn't understand why we were all so cautious about new ideas. We decided that what he really needed was a death march - the experience of being stuck on a project that is inevitably doomed, and having to push on through to the bitter end anyway. That'd teach him!
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  ... and you executed on this death march idea? Did he learn anything, and was it worth the toll you put on yourselves?
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    Senior engineers with the foresight and savviness to execute on such a plan are also going to be savvy enough to not allow it to exact a toll on themselves. Especially with junior managers. Pressure will be created and focused onto the non-technical problem creator and reliefs for that pressure will be similarly engineered in precisely the same manner. All the while, the engineers will keep a smug, knowing look on their faces while the manager flounders around a technical terrain that they can't begin to fathom and that has suddenly become utterly hostile. The manager will eventually 'get it', realizing that he has to work with the engineering team and not against them. Then all problems magically evaporate and a new understanding is reached.
    - nsxwolf 10y ago
      Frankly, this sounds absolutely insane. How is a death march that doesn't exact a toll a death march? Does anyone work a 40 hour a week death march? Why wouldn't you just look for a new job? Why waste your own time on a doomed project? I certainly hope all the engineers are in on the joke, because if I found out some others on my team conspired to create this situation without letting me decide to be involved or not I would be super pissed.
      - 10y ago
StevePerkins 10y ago
My gripe with the "Senior Engineer" title is that I've NEVER met anyone with 5+ years experience who didn't view themselves as "senior". Usually 3+ years. In a market where there are more job openings than employable candidates, and competition for talent leads to rampant ego-stroking and title-inflation... the term "senior" has become just another word for "competent". Someone who can work independently without hand-holding. So how do we verbally distinguish that from, "No, I really DO mean 'senior'"? Most people get 40+ working years in a career. How do you encourage humility and self-awareness, so that people don't honestly believe they've reached the 90th percentile after the only first 10% of that journey?
- jerf 10y ago
  Write into the job description what you actually expect from the engineer. Sadly, we don't have the shorthand you might expect in other industries, so, spell it out. "Expected to be able to drive product requirements and fundamental architecture, interact at a peer level with product and project management, mentor other team members, and make wise use of resources." Add other criteria for software reliability, security, performance, backwards compatibility, etc. as appropriate to your domain. Someone who may think they're "senior" will if they are realistic realize they haven't done that.
- justinhj 10y ago
  I work in the video games business and for us (at least at the better companies I have worked at) the title senior programmer is not based on years of experience. Usually it entails being able to work without supervision to design and deliver complicated features on time. It requires someone who is up to date with industry developments and best practises, who can take lead responsibilities but not always. Strong mentoring is another plus. I've worked with people in their late 30s that are still intermediate level. However there is a strong correlation with years and senior level, because those that stay in the business are the ones that thrive and succeed, whilst those who struggle to advance tend to quit and take more suitable work.
  - 20andup 10y ago
    "those that stay in the business are the ones that thrive and succeed, whilst those who struggle to advance tend to quit and take more suitable work." That depends on the company they are working for though. I have seen people (from tech and non-tech roles) tell me they are seniors/managers because they have X-years of experience. More often then not, if someone needs to tell me they have X-years of experience rather than showing through example, I roll my eyes, and stay away.
alexandercrohde 10y ago
I find this article fundamentally confused. The author spends a lot of time talking about what he invisions a senior engineer ought to be in his opinion (which involves all kinds of ownership). But senior engineer is just a title, it can't be used wrongly, because it's inherently a meaningless cat-and-mouse money game between employees and companies. It's politics; it's a name. Much in the same way that somebody founding a startup can be "engineer" or "CTO" or "Software king Ninja Level 7 dan grandmaster." Titles will never be objectively consistent, this is why the whole industry is now discussing consistent interviews instead hiring based on titles on resumes.
swalsh 10y ago
Here's my world view. A junior engineer is proud he got his code to work, an experienced engineer is proud of the code he wrote to get the feature to work, and a senior engineer is proud of the code he didn't have to write to get it to work.
- klodolph 10y ago
  All of the senior devs I know brag about how many lines of code they delete, if they brag about anything.
- liquidise 10y ago
  Agreed, but small critique: i hesitate telling more junior devs things that sound like "less code is better". It is a message that can easily be misunderstood as "if i write this in a more clever way the code gets shorter" instead of the intended lesson.
  - ferentchak 10y ago
    I always tell my team a good metric is "the least amount of brainpower it takes someone else to use to understand your code."
    - makr17 10y ago
      I've found that for me, "code so that I can comprehend it six months from now at 2:00am after several drinks" is a good motivator for "least brainpower".
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    I usually tell them this: "the only code you can be 100% certain has no bugs is no code".
    - patrickmay 10y ago
      "The fastest transaction is the one you don't execute."
enlightenedfool 10y ago
Please share this with your interviewers. It's stupid to reject senior engineers just because they didn't implement algorithm optimization towards the end of an interview...ignoring everything else they are capable of.
- jiaweihli 10y ago
  Another way to look at this is that interviews are like tests where you already know what the topics are. So a company with a 'standard interview process' is testing your ability to study for and do well on a test. That's a crude measure of how well you can pick up new things and apply them, within certain bounds. A large majority of these interviews are also testing for non-technical skills too - like communication, patience, humility, and thought process. Don't stress out too much about interviews, they're something like 30% technical, 30% non-technical, and 40% luck.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Yes and its bollocks. I have 13 years experience on my CV. The only time I have ever needed to implement a sorting algorithm was for university exams and interviews. What's the point in studying for something irrelevant to the job? I have better things to do with my time.
mstjstjey 10y ago
Oh, you're an engineer because you make websites? I'm a medical doctor because I repair machines.
- liveoneggs 10y ago
  what if I drive trains?
  - mstjstjey 10y ago
    Then you would be a conductor.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      The conductor runs the train, but is not physically at the controls (except on small commuter trains).
    - meddlepal 10y ago
      Engineers drive trains. Conductors keep trains on schedule.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- softawre 10y ago
  What?
  - back_beyond 10y ago
    Engineer as a title is largely meaningless in the software world because anyone can apply it to themselves. Once the self-proclaimed engineer hit critical mass, people who may not have otherwise done so now feel compelled to join the bandwagon lest they get looked down upon or take less pay because the well-financed companies hire engineers, not hackers or programmers. It seems OP is mocking this mindset.
- 10y ago
jrochkind1 10y ago
This is very incisive, and matches my experience.
ascotan 10y ago
>>>The interviewers know the real problems facing the company, but the polite fiction is that they’re only temporary, and soon everyone will be able to focus entirely on the algorithms, which are what really matter. Since most companies tell the same story, candidates have to read between the lines to see if there’s a good fit. I've walked away from a few places because of the interview process. It's like the old song the gambler by Kenny Rodgers. You need to know when to walk away and know when to run. If I get put in a room with a puzzle sheet and they lock the door for 20 minutes, I'm out. Not because I can't solve the problems, but because any company that thinks my ONLY value is in solving puzzle questions has no idea how to hire people and have devaluated the role of the senior SE's at that company. You can tell a lot about a company by the way in which they conduct the interview process.
- xyience 10y ago
  I just ask the interviewers how much freedom they have in the interviewing process (usually it's pretty clear) and whether they would do something different or not if they could. This kind of follows naturally from questions about non-dev responsibilities that devs have. A lot of fellow engineers at my current company believe their little quizzes actually have a lot of signal value when they really don't, I avoid working with them since they tend to have other weird beliefs. If my interviewer is giving me a whiteboard problem somewhat reluctantly because it's what he's supposed to do rather than what he'd like to do, he's probably OK to work with. The followup question is then whether I'd be working with him or not, since so many of these companies just throw you in an interview loop with whoever is available that day...

175 points by arohner 10y ago

Great article. I really appreciate that the OP describes a more closed-form solution to what makes a senior engineer, rather than platitudes like "learn 5 languages". One nit I'd pick with it though is that many large and bureaucratic companies won't appreciate an engineer who decides it on them to fix hiring, culture, product marketing fit and marketing. If you find yourself in this position, it's time to move on to somewhere else that will. Typically, those companies are startups.

vonmoltke 10y ago
The great frustration is that the longer you spend tilting at those windmills at large companies, the less likely you are to get a startup to actually hire you, since you are too "corporate" or "enterprisey".
- Greenisus 10y ago
  That has never been true for me. I've been able to go from large companies to startups and vice versa without any trouble.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    Well, I haven't. Just last week I had DigitalOcean refuse to even talk to me because my experience was "too government/enterprise". I imagine the dozens of black holes at similar companies I have communicated into over the past years are for similar reasons.
    - spraak 10y ago
      Sounds like DigitalOcean is "too startup"
- mavelikara 10y ago
  Startups which can afford to reject a candidate on these grounds are probably too late to join anyways? Something doesn't add up here.
- crpatino 10y ago
  Don't VCs require more "enterprisey" people at later stages, when product discovery is done and operations/scaling up takes precedence?
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    The types of problems experienced in mid to late stage are definitely more relevant to someone with experience at ops and scale. Late stage startups or enterprise (the line blurs) are popular places to pick such talent, and for these needs specifically, Netflix is one popular source.
- tedmiston 10y ago
  The reality of your comment varies widely by the stage of the startup. Pre-seed is a radically different animal than Series B.
sulam 10y ago
Honestly, our industry has such a love affair with engineering at this point that at many companies you can easily have an impact in these areas if you're senior enough. And by "senior enough" I don't mean having a big enough title. These groups are willing to collaborate with people who show honest interest and appreciation for the problems they're trying to solve and the roadblocks they hit while doing so. It may sound a little chicken and egg, but I think part of how senior people demonstrate their seniority is to successfully work outside their silo. Unfortunately many engineers fall into one of two traps: waiting for permission to do this kind of work or -- the flip side -- barging in without having a clear way to contribute.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

This captures the role quite well.

beat 10y ago

I'm reminded of an experience many years ago, when talking to a couple of other senior engineers about a talented but hotheaded young manager who couldn't understand why we were all so cautious about new ideas. We decided that what he really needed was a death march - the experience of being stuck on a project that is inevitably doomed, and having to push on through to the bitter end anyway. That'd teach him!

nsxwolf 10y ago
... and you executed on this death march idea? Did he learn anything, and was it worth the toll you put on yourselves?
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  Senior engineers with the foresight and savviness to execute on such a plan are also going to be savvy enough to not allow it to exact a toll on themselves. Especially with junior managers. Pressure will be created and focused onto the non-technical problem creator and reliefs for that pressure will be similarly engineered in precisely the same manner. All the while, the engineers will keep a smug, knowing look on their faces while the manager flounders around a technical terrain that they can't begin to fathom and that has suddenly become utterly hostile. The manager will eventually 'get it', realizing that he has to work with the engineering team and not against them. Then all problems magically evaporate and a new understanding is reached.
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    Frankly, this sounds absolutely insane. How is a death march that doesn't exact a toll a death march? Does anyone work a 40 hour a week death march? Why wouldn't you just look for a new job? Why waste your own time on a doomed project? I certainly hope all the engineers are in on the joke, because if I found out some others on my team conspired to create this situation without letting me decide to be involved or not I would be super pissed.
    - 10y ago

StevePerkins 10y ago

My gripe with the "Senior Engineer" title is that I've NEVER met anyone with 5+ years experience who didn't view themselves as "senior". Usually 3+ years. In a market where there are more job openings than employable candidates, and competition for talent leads to rampant ego-stroking and title-inflation... the term "senior" has become just another word for "competent". Someone who can work independently without hand-holding. So how do we verbally distinguish that from, "No, I really DO mean 'senior'"? Most people get 40+ working years in a career. How do you encourage humility and self-awareness, so that people don't honestly believe they've reached the 90th percentile after the only first 10% of that journey?

jerf 10y ago
Write into the job description what you actually expect from the engineer. Sadly, we don't have the shorthand you might expect in other industries, so, spell it out. "Expected to be able to drive product requirements and fundamental architecture, interact at a peer level with product and project management, mentor other team members, and make wise use of resources." Add other criteria for software reliability, security, performance, backwards compatibility, etc. as appropriate to your domain. Someone who may think they're "senior" will if they are realistic realize they haven't done that.
justinhj 10y ago
I work in the video games business and for us (at least at the better companies I have worked at) the title senior programmer is not based on years of experience. Usually it entails being able to work without supervision to design and deliver complicated features on time. It requires someone who is up to date with industry developments and best practises, who can take lead responsibilities but not always. Strong mentoring is another plus. I've worked with people in their late 30s that are still intermediate level. However there is a strong correlation with years and senior level, because those that stay in the business are the ones that thrive and succeed, whilst those who struggle to advance tend to quit and take more suitable work.
- 20andup 10y ago
  "those that stay in the business are the ones that thrive and succeed, whilst those who struggle to advance tend to quit and take more suitable work." That depends on the company they are working for though. I have seen people (from tech and non-tech roles) tell me they are seniors/managers because they have X-years of experience. More often then not, if someone needs to tell me they have X-years of experience rather than showing through example, I roll my eyes, and stay away.

alexandercrohde 10y ago

I find this article fundamentally confused. The author spends a lot of time talking about what he invisions a senior engineer ought to be in his opinion (which involves all kinds of ownership). But senior engineer is just a title, it can't be used wrongly, because it's inherently a meaningless cat-and-mouse money game between employees and companies. It's politics; it's a name. Much in the same way that somebody founding a startup can be "engineer" or "CTO" or "Software king Ninja Level 7 dan grandmaster." Titles will never be objectively consistent, this is why the whole industry is now discussing consistent interviews instead hiring based on titles on resumes.

swalsh 10y ago

Here's my world view. A junior engineer is proud he got his code to work, an experienced engineer is proud of the code he wrote to get the feature to work, and a senior engineer is proud of the code he didn't have to write to get it to work.

klodolph 10y ago
All of the senior devs I know brag about how many lines of code they delete, if they brag about anything.
liquidise 10y ago
Agreed, but small critique: i hesitate telling more junior devs things that sound like "less code is better". It is a message that can easily be misunderstood as "if i write this in a more clever way the code gets shorter" instead of the intended lesson.
- ferentchak 10y ago
  I always tell my team a good metric is "the least amount of brainpower it takes someone else to use to understand your code."
  - makr17 10y ago
    I've found that for me, "code so that I can comprehend it six months from now at 2:00am after several drinks" is a good motivator for "least brainpower".
- metaphorm 10y ago
  I usually tell them this: "the only code you can be 100% certain has no bugs is no code".
  - patrickmay 10y ago
    "The fastest transaction is the one you don't execute."

enlightenedfool 10y ago

Please share this with your interviewers. It's stupid to reject senior engineers just because they didn't implement algorithm optimization towards the end of an interview...ignoring everything else they are capable of.

jiaweihli 10y ago
Another way to look at this is that interviews are like tests where you already know what the topics are. So a company with a 'standard interview process' is testing your ability to study for and do well on a test. That's a crude measure of how well you can pick up new things and apply them, within certain bounds. A large majority of these interviews are also testing for non-technical skills too - like communication, patience, humility, and thought process. Don't stress out too much about interviews, they're something like 30% technical, 30% non-technical, and 40% luck.
- collyw 10y ago
  Yes and its bollocks. I have 13 years experience on my CV. The only time I have ever needed to implement a sorting algorithm was for university exams and interviews. What's the point in studying for something irrelevant to the job? I have better things to do with my time.

mstjstjey 10y ago

Oh, you're an engineer because you make websites? I'm a medical doctor because I repair machines.

liveoneggs 10y ago
what if I drive trains?
- mstjstjey 10y ago
  Then you would be a conductor.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    The conductor runs the train, but is not physically at the controls (except on small commuter trains).
  - meddlepal 10y ago
    Engineers drive trains. Conductors keep trains on schedule.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
softawre 10y ago
What?
- back_beyond 10y ago
  Engineer as a title is largely meaningless in the software world because anyone can apply it to themselves. Once the self-proclaimed engineer hit critical mass, people who may not have otherwise done so now feel compelled to join the bandwagon lest they get looked down upon or take less pay because the well-financed companies hire engineers, not hackers or programmers. It seems OP is mocking this mindset.
10y ago

jrochkind1 10y ago

This is very incisive, and matches my experience.

ascotan 10y ago

>>>The interviewers know the real problems facing the company, but the polite fiction is that they’re only temporary, and soon everyone will be able to focus entirely on the algorithms, which are what really matter. Since most companies tell the same story, candidates have to read between the lines to see if there’s a good fit. I've walked away from a few places because of the interview process. It's like the old song the gambler by Kenny Rodgers. You need to know when to walk away and know when to run. If I get put in a room with a puzzle sheet and they lock the door for 20 minutes, I'm out. Not because I can't solve the problems, but because any company that thinks my ONLY value is in solving puzzle questions has no idea how to hire people and have devaluated the role of the senior SE's at that company. You can tell a lot about a company by the way in which they conduct the interview process.

xyience 10y ago
I just ask the interviewers how much freedom they have in the interviewing process (usually it's pretty clear) and whether they would do something different or not if they could. This kind of follows naturally from questions about non-dev responsibilities that devs have. A lot of fellow engineers at my current company believe their little quizzes actually have a lot of signal value when they really don't, I avoid working with them since they tend to have other weird beliefs. If my interviewer is giving me a whiteboard problem somewhat reluctantly because it's what he's supposed to do rather than what he'd like to do, he's probably OK to work with. The followup question is then whether I'd be working with him or not, since so many of these companies just throw you in an interview loop with whoever is available that day...