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There are two types of senior engineers. One is the type talked about here. Someone who loves to design and code, but wants to have more impact, and finds tha

There are two types of senior engineers. One is the type talked about here. Someone who loves to design and code, but wants to have more impact, and finds that guiding other engineers is a more effective use of their time. See the examples in the article: Creating a new RFC process, introducing a post check-in hook for security audits, setting up a new platform team that builds libraries for everyone else. All of these things multiply the work of everyone else. They make what everyone else is doing faster/more effective/easier. Then there is the other kind of senior engineer -- the one that can output well structured, efficient, self documenting, code quickly. The one that you give the thorniest problems and they surprise you with a solution a few days later. Solving things that junior engineers simply couldn't. There is value to both kinds of senior engineers. The first kind is much more valuable though because most orgs aren't doing the deep tech that the second kind of engineer is good at solving.

bobthepanda 4y ago
Realistically you want a little bit of A and a little bit of B as well. The best is a senior engineer who can spit out the skeleton of B for junior engineers to work on; at the end of the day, sometimes parallel workstreams are more effective, and relying too heavily on a senior engineer can create a bad bus problem.
- jedberg 4y ago
  > The best is a senior engineer who can spit out the skeleton of B for junior engineers to work on That's what person A does. Agreed that having a super senior engineers is bad for the bus factor (FYI people are calling it the lottery factor now, as in "what if they won the lottery and retired") but sometimes you don't have the luxury of having backup people.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    That's silly though because even if they won the lottery they'd probably at least have an exit period while they sorted out their winnings, and you could potentially pay them to work a reduced schedule or something, especially if they like working there. If I won the lottery I wouldn't stop working immediately, I'd give notice and could do some hand over. Bus factor though - if a bus hits me I am immediately gone and people have to catch up without hand holding
    - e1g 4y ago
      The “lottery” framing is the normalized and gentle way of asking “What’s our plan for when Stripe / OpenAI offers them a $1M/yr Staff role but only if they start immediately?” Think about the great engineers you’ve met, and how many of them would say “Sorry, but no - my current team relies on me, and I should help them transition”.
      - jasonm23 4y ago
        Lottery framing is the gentle way of saying, what if they die. But sure, go with the "other" lottery. That's why we called it a Truck number.
      - RugnirViking 4y ago
        I feel like a team that won't accept > Sorry, but no - my current team relies on me, and I should help them transition as a reason to allow a transition period is setting themselves up for failure. Isn't that the kind of engineer you want?
      - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
        > only if they start immediately Maybe this is a cultural thing, but here it's pretty well understood that people have notice periods built into their contracts. Absolutely no employer would be hiring any staff with any expectation that they be able to start the next day if that person is already employed.
        bobthepanda 3y ago
        In the US two weeks notice is the cultural norm, although there are horror stories about bad employers who don’t respect that all. Probably the more relevant framing is “what if person just suddenly quits/takes leave?” Which has a whole host of valid reasons for happening.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      It's just a nicer way of saying that they left without implying that they died.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    Tbh the newspeak version of this is terrible. If someone immediately quits their job (presumably without transition so you can hire someone else) you have failed as a leader
proc0 4y ago
Excellent, thanks for the input.
vsareto 4y ago
The first sounds like an architect or engineering manager in disguise without the title (and probably without the pay), but probably gets to skip out on some of the more boring meetings That leads us to wider communication problems for hiring: 1) pay is usually searched by title 2) job postings are also posted with titles 3) with those titles as ambiguous, you have to dig in to find out what kind it is The link from title to pay and the confusion around it is advantageous to companies because it means calling someone a Senior Engineer, but giving them more responsibilities, still justifies a lower pay range
soco 4y ago
I'm the number two and must I agree, the need is punctual and there's quite some networking required to be able to reach to those corners of the (big) organization where they feel lost. It's almost always about some legacy thing and it's way cheaper to get me to fix and document it, right before thinking of rewriting/replacing.

bobthepanda 4y ago

Realistically you want a little bit of A and a little bit of B as well. The best is a senior engineer who can spit out the skeleton of B for junior engineers to work on; at the end of the day, sometimes parallel workstreams are more effective, and relying too heavily on a senior engineer can create a bad bus problem.

jedberg 4y ago
> The best is a senior engineer who can spit out the skeleton of B for junior engineers to work on That's what person A does. Agreed that having a super senior engineers is bad for the bus factor (FYI people are calling it the lottery factor now, as in "what if they won the lottery and retired") but sometimes you don't have the luxury of having backup people.
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  That's silly though because even if they won the lottery they'd probably at least have an exit period while they sorted out their winnings, and you could potentially pay them to work a reduced schedule or something, especially if they like working there. If I won the lottery I wouldn't stop working immediately, I'd give notice and could do some hand over. Bus factor though - if a bus hits me I am immediately gone and people have to catch up without hand holding
  - e1g 4y ago
    The “lottery” framing is the normalized and gentle way of asking “What’s our plan for when Stripe / OpenAI offers them a $1M/yr Staff role but only if they start immediately?” Think about the great engineers you’ve met, and how many of them would say “Sorry, but no - my current team relies on me, and I should help them transition”.
    - jasonm23 4y ago
      Lottery framing is the gentle way of saying, what if they die. But sure, go with the "other" lottery. That's why we called it a Truck number.
    - RugnirViking 4y ago
      I feel like a team that won't accept > Sorry, but no - my current team relies on me, and I should help them transition as a reason to allow a transition period is setting themselves up for failure. Isn't that the kind of engineer you want?
    - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
      > only if they start immediately Maybe this is a cultural thing, but here it's pretty well understood that people have notice periods built into their contracts. Absolutely no employer would be hiring any staff with any expectation that they be able to start the next day if that person is already employed.
      - bobthepanda 3y ago
        In the US two weeks notice is the cultural norm, although there are horror stories about bad employers who don’t respect that all. Probably the more relevant framing is “what if person just suddenly quits/takes leave?” Which has a whole host of valid reasons for happening.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    It's just a nicer way of saying that they left without implying that they died.
- dilyevsky 4y ago
  Tbh the newspeak version of this is terrible. If someone immediately quits their job (presumably without transition so you can hire someone else) you have failed as a leader

proc0 4y ago

Excellent, thanks for the input.

vsareto 4y ago

The first sounds like an architect or engineering manager in disguise without the title (and probably without the pay), but probably gets to skip out on some of the more boring meetings That leads us to wider communication problems for hiring: 1) pay is usually searched by title 2) job postings are also posted with titles 3) with those titles as ambiguous, you have to dig in to find out what kind it is The link from title to pay and the confusion around it is advantageous to companies because it means calling someone a Senior Engineer, but giving them more responsibilities, still justifies a lower pay range

soco 4y ago

I'm the number two and must I agree, the need is punctual and there's quite some networking required to be able to reach to those corners of the (big) organization where they feel lost. It's almost always about some legacy thing and it's way cheaper to get me to fix and document it, right before thinking of rewriting/replacing.