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I’ve met “staff” engineers who were just above “junior” at best, and architects who couldn’t actually write code but man, could they talk your ear off about des

I’ve met “staff” engineers who were just above “junior” at best, and architects who couldn’t actually write code but man, could they talk your ear off about design patterns that any good programmer should know anyway. Often titles are a reflection of who’s been at the company the longest or who toots their own horn the most. I have no faith in titles, they’re mostly meaningless.

humanrebar 5y ago
Agreed about horn tooting design astronauts. There's a flip side to consider, though. I've seen brilliant people waste years of their energy and talent on technology ideas that go nowhere due to a lack of ability to ship to a community and gain mindshare among relevant technologists. Folks should dismiss vanity and puffery, but broadcasting opportunities and successes (and interesting challenges that need solutions, even) is undervalued among certain engineers. And it's a critical part of "shipping" for certain kinds of projects.
hiptobecubic 5y ago
I think this is probably a small-company problem. I've literally never met a staff engineer at Google that wasn't clearly better than the average Senior.
- indymike 5y ago
  This one is cultural, and a meritocracy is one kind of culture.
- aix1 5y ago
  I don't know how typical Google is, but it expressly tries to maintain a consistent bar for a given ladder/level[*] and L5 -> L6 SWE promos are pretty tough. It's often said that L6 SWE is a different job and not just L5++, and I think there's a lot of truth in that. [*] Consistency is a great goal, but is clearer getting harder and harder to achieve as the company is getting bigger and more diverse in terms of product areas, engineering and other skills etc.
- nfw2 5y ago
  The problem has been fairly extreme at all of the companies I've worked at. I would even say that, if you exclude the new grads, there's actually an inverse relationship between someone's level and how much I would want to work with them. I expect the problem is most severe at mid-sized companies that don't have highly-technical business problems to solve. I think the root cause looks something like this: - A long chain of relatively non-technical managers exists in the engineering org. - Promotions, especially to staff, become very political, ie the decision-makers likely haven't worked directly with the candidates for promotions. - The criteria for promotion to staff effectively becomes whether they contribute to highly-visible, high-level engineering efforts - If the domain doesn't require them, these highly-visible efforts are likely either lateral shifts or actively unhelpful. The company probably doesn't need to be reinventing the wheel with some staff IC's pet project, especially if the mid-level IC's know what they're doing and can keep the lights on. - The best engineers eventually leave for greener pastures. Of the engineers that stick around, the ones most likely to get promoted are the ones who are the most enthusiastic about designing (or just talking about) systems that no one wants or needs
  - hiptobecubic 5y ago
    It sounds like the problem is more or less summarized as "No one knows how to evaluate work, so loud people get promoted." Not biasing towards loud people is difficult, but at least at Google, the process is pretty harshly designed to avoid it. The criteria for promotion is clear. The people deciding on it are considering many different promotions at once, so they have a decent sample to look at. The people with incentive to promote don't get to make the decision or they play only a small role in it. There is a strong demand to see evidence that the person's work fits the job ladder description that they are trying to promote to, etc. It's a lot of overhead and everyone hates it, but it seems to be pretty robust at avoiding arbitrary promotion.

humanrebar 5y ago

Agreed about horn tooting design astronauts. There's a flip side to consider, though. I've seen brilliant people waste years of their energy and talent on technology ideas that go nowhere due to a lack of ability to ship to a community and gain mindshare among relevant technologists. Folks should dismiss vanity and puffery, but broadcasting opportunities and successes (and interesting challenges that need solutions, even) is undervalued among certain engineers. And it's a critical part of "shipping" for certain kinds of projects.

hiptobecubic 5y ago

I think this is probably a small-company problem. I've literally never met a staff engineer at Google that wasn't clearly better than the average Senior.

indymike 5y ago
This one is cultural, and a meritocracy is one kind of culture.
aix1 5y ago
I don't know how typical Google is, but it expressly tries to maintain a consistent bar for a given ladder/level[*] and L5 -> L6 SWE promos are pretty tough. It's often said that L6 SWE is a different job and not just L5++, and I think there's a lot of truth in that. [*] Consistency is a great goal, but is clearer getting harder and harder to achieve as the company is getting bigger and more diverse in terms of product areas, engineering and other skills etc.
nfw2 5y ago
The problem has been fairly extreme at all of the companies I've worked at. I would even say that, if you exclude the new grads, there's actually an inverse relationship between someone's level and how much I would want to work with them. I expect the problem is most severe at mid-sized companies that don't have highly-technical business problems to solve. I think the root cause looks something like this: - A long chain of relatively non-technical managers exists in the engineering org. - Promotions, especially to staff, become very political, ie the decision-makers likely haven't worked directly with the candidates for promotions. - The criteria for promotion to staff effectively becomes whether they contribute to highly-visible, high-level engineering efforts - If the domain doesn't require them, these highly-visible efforts are likely either lateral shifts or actively unhelpful. The company probably doesn't need to be reinventing the wheel with some staff IC's pet project, especially if the mid-level IC's know what they're doing and can keep the lights on. - The best engineers eventually leave for greener pastures. Of the engineers that stick around, the ones most likely to get promoted are the ones who are the most enthusiastic about designing (or just talking about) systems that no one wants or needs
- hiptobecubic 5y ago
  It sounds like the problem is more or less summarized as "No one knows how to evaluate work, so loud people get promoted." Not biasing towards loud people is difficult, but at least at Google, the process is pretty harshly designed to avoid it. The criteria for promotion is clear. The people deciding on it are considering many different promotions at once, so they have a decent sample to look at. The people with incentive to promote don't get to make the decision or they play only a small role in it. There is a strong demand to see evidence that the person's work fits the job ladder description that they are trying to promote to, etc. It's a lot of overhead and everyone hates it, but it seems to be pretty robust at avoiding arbitrary promotion.