3 ms·
What I run into over and over are largely attitude issues in all parties involved. "Junior" is not an insult nor does it / should it demand an insulting salary
by leetrout 9y ago
What I run into over and over are largely attitude issues in all parties involved.
"Junior" is not an insult nor does it / should it demand an insulting salary level. I don't look at someone's title and think "they must be bad" or "I am better than them" etc etc but I see that attitude a lot. I see seniors take interesting work for themselves, I see them shove off juniors and I see juniors complain about the work they have to do.
And even worse is when someone holds the explicit junior title they are only interested in getting the senior title. Then we have seniors that shouldn't have that in their title feeling threatened by who does and doesn't have / get sr added to their title. It's all a dreadful game and I'm tired of playing it.
As others have said- I enjoy mentoring. I'm not ashamed that I enjoy someone taking the time to listen to me and what I have to say. I have 13 years of mistakes I can share. I don't enjoy working with people that are only interested in the "title game" and that complain about the types of work they have to do. We're all paid very well to do the type of work we do and ultimately we're paid to do what the company asks of us. We don't have to believe it's the grandest technical challenge of all time yet I see Jrs complain they aren't given the "big work" without realizing they don't know what they don't know- they just see some sort of prestige associated with it.
And shame on the seniors for taking work that is interesting to others first and shame on management for not making time for a junior to tackle a bigger task. I do feel for Jr engineers that get stuck in the cycle of doing menial tasks because no one makes time for them to make mistakes.
If you've got Sr in your title did you get it by being hired in to the title or by earning it in some fashion? Did you earn it by being a workaholic? Did you earn it by putting in time with the same organization? Did you earn it by growing your responsibilities? Ultimately- who helped you do it? Who gave you the chances and which manager wasn't threatened by you and allowed you to be promoted? Try to imitate those values and lead by example. Sadly I see a lot of insecure engineers who don't want to help and would never stand for a coworker, not the least someone they helped mentor, surpass them. And it IS a shame.