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Feels like the "senior IC" role described in this article corresponds mainly to today's "3-5 years of experience 'senior' engineer" roles. The reality that I've

Feels like the "senior IC" role described in this article corresponds mainly to today's "3-5 years of experience 'senior' engineer" roles. The reality that I've seen and experienced is that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as described in the article. It's not the same as management, but it's inevitably more meetings and evangelizing your ideas.

sixdimensional 5y ago
The fact that we work in an industry where 3-5 years is considered senior still boggles me sometimes.
- julianozen 5y ago
  My two cents here is that senior doesn’t mean the same thing at every company. But title inflation is a good way to snag great hires away from other places and retain employees
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
  It's just a title. Means about as much as VP in banks.
  - treis 5y ago
    Also, only the 2nd or 3rd step on the ladder. Most places with 3-5 YOE seniors have Staffs & Principles above them.
    - qzw 5y ago
      Which have also been watered down in order to give the seniors somewhere to move up to. So the rungs get relabeled, but the ladder doesn’t actually reach any higher.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - qzw 5y ago
    And just as empty and ultimately demoralizing. It feels great to “advance” so quickly at the start, but then most people are stuck at some level of “senior” for the next N decades. Why not have meaningful titles commensurate with actual levels of mastery?
- qzw 5y ago
  My personal theory is that this is a side effect of startup/SV culture trying to make work seem like an extension of college. The office is a “campus”, where you get fed, socialize, and sometimes sleep/crash on a couch or the floor. College students go from freshmen to seniors in four years. So now the work titles also do the same.
- bradlys 5y ago
  You’d have to keep people around longer. Thing is - people don’t want to stay in the industry as software ICs. They want to be in product, management, or something else. Being a software engineer is often just a stepping stone to the next thing.
kosievdmerwe 5y ago
This is something people seem hesitant to realize: that after a certain point you can only grow your career by "managing" other people. This is true in a lot of (most?) fields. At some point you cannot become more productive as an individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many people if you want to increase your productivity. This can of course take many forms, but the essence is inescapable.
- belval 5y ago
  Exactly, FANG-like have done a lot of work to move definitions around to make it seem like "principal engineer" was still an IC position, but all good principal engineer I've interacted with were basically managers with a different name. Sure they review code and still get their hands dirty from time to time on critical pieces, but there is much more value in using your experience to lead your team in the right direction.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  At some point you cannot become more productive as an individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many people if you want to increase your productivity. Neat. Another manifestation of the attitude regarding productivity of "more, more, and more still" as the default trajectory in the name of 'growth'. Calling it "inescapable" even. Sheesh. What's the point at which we realize "enough" productivity is exactly "enough" and give people the agency and autonomy to perform where they are most capable at a velocity of work that is stable, sustainable and...fuck it, I'll say it: sane? Commenter, please understand: this isn't an attack on you for merely saying it, but is instead a full-frontal assault on the concept in general because honeslty...personally...I'm sick of it. Alright, I'm done venting.
  - alonsonic 5y ago
    This is something I ask myself constantly. I believe what the commenter means is that if you want to "grow" or get a higher salary then you will be expected to do more, and at a certain point the definition of more can only mean stepping into a leadership role of some sort where you have to interface with more people. If you're happy with your current responsibilities as an IC then you should be able to stay at that top level (Principal engineer) and continue doing what you're doing today, just don't expect a higher pay.
krosaen 5y ago
The answer to this for me has been to transition to something more specialized: from full stack developer to working in robotics. The previous skills are still relevant and all the new domain knowledge keeps me interested. The combo of domain knowledge and software skills is more rare, so it feels a bit more satisfying than working as a senior IC the way I did 10+ years ago 5 years into my software career out of college. And I still spend my days not in meetings, thinking about how to solve hard problems and implementing solutions. I haven't (yet) felt compelled to rise up the senior staff / fellow or whatever levels where you end up in meetings anyways. And not to knock the super senior folks who do this well, I just still really like coding for the time being.
- bckr 5y ago
  Could I contact you about how you made this transition? My email is Anthony at yesrobo dot net
  - krosaen 5y ago
    I'll send you an email
Joeri 5y ago
The reality that I've seen and experienced is that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as described in the article. This is my struggle. After about five years of head down all day programming I started to get more of a tech lead role, and the hours spent on explaining the work instead of doing the work crept up. I managed to avoid the management track by actively pushing back when pushed that way, but I eventually got the architect title instead, and now I can go months writing nothing but emails and spec documents before I manage to find a good enough excuse to write code. The upside is that I decide a lot of things, which as a pure coder I did a lot less. The downside is that I really wish I spent more time writing code. Sometimes I think about going indie and building and selling my own product, but anything I can think of seems to involve a lot of time spent doing other business activities than coding, and that just does not appeal.
- Jemaclus 5y ago
  I sympathize. I had a similar career trajectory, but wound up going into management (I like it though) once I hit the principal level. Don't underestimate the power of communication though. It would be well worth your time to have a frank conversation with your boss about what it is that you're interested in doing (ie, writing more code), and seeing if there's an opportunity to be more hands-on with the code. If there isn't at your company, then start interviewing with new companies and be explicit about what it is that you want to do. Wishing you the best of luck with this. I know how frustrating it can be to not be able to write code as much as you want...

sixdimensional 5y ago

The fact that we work in an industry where 3-5 years is considered senior still boggles me sometimes.

julianozen 5y ago
My two cents here is that senior doesn’t mean the same thing at every company. But title inflation is a good way to snag great hires away from other places and retain employees
isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
It's just a title. Means about as much as VP in banks.
- treis 5y ago
  Also, only the 2nd or 3rd step on the ladder. Most places with 3-5 YOE seniors have Staffs & Principles above them.
  - qzw 5y ago
    Which have also been watered down in order to give the seniors somewhere to move up to. So the rungs get relabeled, but the ladder doesn’t actually reach any higher.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- qzw 5y ago
  And just as empty and ultimately demoralizing. It feels great to “advance” so quickly at the start, but then most people are stuck at some level of “senior” for the next N decades. Why not have meaningful titles commensurate with actual levels of mastery?
qzw 5y ago
My personal theory is that this is a side effect of startup/SV culture trying to make work seem like an extension of college. The office is a “campus”, where you get fed, socialize, and sometimes sleep/crash on a couch or the floor. College students go from freshmen to seniors in four years. So now the work titles also do the same.
bradlys 5y ago
You’d have to keep people around longer. Thing is - people don’t want to stay in the industry as software ICs. They want to be in product, management, or something else. Being a software engineer is often just a stepping stone to the next thing.

kosievdmerwe 5y ago

This is something people seem hesitant to realize: that after a certain point you can only grow your career by "managing" other people. This is true in a lot of (most?) fields. At some point you cannot become more productive as an individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many people if you want to increase your productivity. This can of course take many forms, but the essence is inescapable.

belval 5y ago
Exactly, FANG-like have done a lot of work to move definitions around to make it seem like "principal engineer" was still an IC position, but all good principal engineer I've interacted with were basically managers with a different name. Sure they review code and still get their hands dirty from time to time on critical pieces, but there is much more value in using your experience to lead your team in the right direction.
dvtrn 5y ago
At some point you cannot become more productive as an individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many people if you want to increase your productivity. Neat. Another manifestation of the attitude regarding productivity of "more, more, and more still" as the default trajectory in the name of 'growth'. Calling it "inescapable" even. Sheesh. What's the point at which we realize "enough" productivity is exactly "enough" and give people the agency and autonomy to perform where they are most capable at a velocity of work that is stable, sustainable and...fuck it, I'll say it: sane? Commenter, please understand: this isn't an attack on you for merely saying it, but is instead a full-frontal assault on the concept in general because honeslty...personally...I'm sick of it. Alright, I'm done venting.
- alonsonic 5y ago
  This is something I ask myself constantly. I believe what the commenter means is that if you want to "grow" or get a higher salary then you will be expected to do more, and at a certain point the definition of more can only mean stepping into a leadership role of some sort where you have to interface with more people. If you're happy with your current responsibilities as an IC then you should be able to stay at that top level (Principal engineer) and continue doing what you're doing today, just don't expect a higher pay.

krosaen 5y ago

The answer to this for me has been to transition to something more specialized: from full stack developer to working in robotics. The previous skills are still relevant and all the new domain knowledge keeps me interested. The combo of domain knowledge and software skills is more rare, so it feels a bit more satisfying than working as a senior IC the way I did 10+ years ago 5 years into my software career out of college. And I still spend my days not in meetings, thinking about how to solve hard problems and implementing solutions. I haven't (yet) felt compelled to rise up the senior staff / fellow or whatever levels where you end up in meetings anyways. And not to knock the super senior folks who do this well, I just still really like coding for the time being.

bckr 5y ago
Could I contact you about how you made this transition? My email is Anthony at yesrobo dot net
- krosaen 5y ago
  I'll send you an email

Joeri 5y ago

The reality that I've seen and experienced is that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as described in the article. This is my struggle. After about five years of head down all day programming I started to get more of a tech lead role, and the hours spent on explaining the work instead of doing the work crept up. I managed to avoid the management track by actively pushing back when pushed that way, but I eventually got the architect title instead, and now I can go months writing nothing but emails and spec documents before I manage to find a good enough excuse to write code. The upside is that I decide a lot of things, which as a pure coder I did a lot less. The downside is that I really wish I spent more time writing code. Sometimes I think about going indie and building and selling my own product, but anything I can think of seems to involve a lot of time spent doing other business activities than coding, and that just does not appeal.

Jemaclus 5y ago
I sympathize. I had a similar career trajectory, but wound up going into management (I like it though) once I hit the principal level. Don't underestimate the power of communication though. It would be well worth your time to have a frank conversation with your boss about what it is that you're interested in doing (ie, writing more code), and seeing if there's an opportunity to be more hands-on with the code. If there isn't at your company, then start interviewing with new companies and be explicit about what it is that you want to do. Wishing you the best of luck with this. I know how frustrating it can be to not be able to write code as much as you want...