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I actually think ageism is a huge component of this. In classical engineering fields, experience was highly valued. In some it still is. In civil engineerin

I actually think ageism is a huge component of this. In classical engineering fields, experience was highly valued. In some it still is. In civil engineering, no 24 year old will be able to bullshit their way into senior level roles. It just doesn't happen. The senior guys get more and more valuable. A big part of that is that it's very hard to bullshit your way through that field without at least 6-8 years of experience, and by then you'll hopefully have been humbled enough not to try and bullshit it. I think missteps and mistakes hit differently when someone traceably stamps their name on a finished product and takes personal liability for it in perpetuity.

Corrado 3y ago
I've seen this happen in my career. In a previous life we hired a person just out of college into a "Senior" developer role. Sure, the person was smart but they didn't have the experience, they hadn't made the mistakes or seen the outcomes of various decisions to be called "Senior". I've struggled since then describing why I felt this way and I think the essay helps immensely. In my recollection that developer didn't reach a software vocab point and couldn't really understand the difference. The pain point for me was that I could spot the difference and no one (in management) really cared.