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This is why software is not a serious profession: it has no consistency in progression and recognition. I think I would drive myself mad if I tried to live up

This is why software is not a serious profession: it has no consistency in progression and recognition. I think I would drive myself mad if I tried to live up to the crazy expectations of senior from most internet commenters.

re-thc 3y ago
> I think I would drive myself mad if I tried to live up to the crazy expectations of senior from most internet commenters. And maybe that's the point of it. Senior without the title inflations is meant to be an actual high level position - not 50-100% of the company. A lot of places have just replaced senior with staff/principal engineers instead, but senior used to be a well respected and unique title back in the days.
- Silhouette 3y ago
  I agree with half of what you say. Senior should be a high-level position. It's a recognition of someone with solid skills and the ability to get things done. But suppose a senior is someone who can work mostly autonomously under general direction from their management and tech leadership, which I'd say is a reasonable basic definition of what "senior" level has historically meant in software development. We would expect to see a lot more people reaching that level and sticking around on a tech career path now because of the rapid growth in the industry and the greater awareness that people can be a high-level IC but not have much interest in formal leadership or management roles. Moreover there is no rule that says an employer should hire mostly juniors, some mids and only a few seniors. Good seniors are almost always disproportionately cost-effective if you can manage to hire them. The trend for rapid job-hopping has left juniors as an almost worthless hire in many cases because they probably won't be around long enough to make a good contribution in return for all the early overheads they incur. There is definitely a longer formal tech track in large organisations now. I'd say it used to be more that you reached senior and then any other responsibilities like leading a team or dealing with large-scale software architecture issues were kind of attached. So historically you'd associate those higher responsibilities with "senior" people where today those with the skills and experience to do them probably have higher job titles like lead/staff/principal instead. So I'm not sure senior has been deflated or replaced by staff etc. It's just that senior used to be the top of three levels for many employers but now there's more recognition that your development doesn't just stop after a few years and "senior" today mostly means "first few years as a senior" in old terminology.
  - re-thc 3y ago
    > But suppose a senior is someone who can work mostly autonomously under general direction from their management and tech leadership, which I'd say is a reasonable basic definition of what "senior" level has historically meant in software development. That's where I disagree. A senior should do a lot more than that. Seniors would mentor and train juniors. Software or not - that's how it's traditionally been. What you describe is more like an engineer (no senior). Juniors are the 1s that can't work autonomously. When you are recognized as fully fitting the role you're just that. A senior then excels the role. > We would expect to see a lot more people reaching that level and sticking around on a tech career path now What does this have to do with what roles are available in an organization? I start a company. I have 1 CTO, 1 tech lead, 2 seniors and the rest are engineers. What level someone is at should not impact what I call the titles available, but to suit the current market, instead we have 1 CTO, 1 principal engineer, 2 staff engineer, 1 tech lead, some seniors and a few engineers. Same same. No 1 actually grew additional roles. It's all a trick to make people think they've levelled up.
    - Silhouette 3y ago
      Seniors would mentor and train juniors. I agree that was typically also something that came in at senior level. Maybe it's a regional thing? I'm in the UK. I'd say it was fairly standard here for a junior to be someone in the first couple of years on the job who was still learning the ropes and probably couldn't do much beyond very basic grunt work without the assistance of someone more senior. Losing the "junior" label came when you got beyond the near-full-time hand-holding and started doing routine stuff independently. The "senior" label came when you could do the less routine or more difficult stuff mostly independently as well. What does this have to do with what roles are available in an organization? It means an organisation that wants to hire a senior-heavy team can now do so. That wasn't realistic for most organisations a decade ago because there weren't enough seniors to go around.
      - re-thc 3y ago
        > It means an organisation that wants to hire a senior-heavy team can now do so. That wasn't realistic for most organisations a decade ago because there weren't enough seniors to go around. There are 2 distinctions and that's what might be confusing. 1 is your experience/level and what you're referring to. The other is the roles an organization offers. I might have 50 years of experience but if the other roles are taken by more qualified people in THAT organization I can take a normal engineer route. Doesn't have to be senior. It doesn't make myself not qualified to even be a CTO elsewhere. The roles are fixed. It has to do with budget, balanced, etc. Having all seniors might mean fights and everyone wanting to contribute and pull the project in different directions. A good balance is needed. A senior heavy team might not be good just because you can.
ryanbrunner 3y ago
This is really startup / tech titles as a whole. If anything engineering has avoided the rampant title inflation that has been commonplace among other departments (try finding a sales rep who isn't at least a senior / director).

re-thc 3y ago

> I think I would drive myself mad if I tried to live up to the crazy expectations of senior from most internet commenters. And maybe that's the point of it. Senior without the title inflations is meant to be an actual high level position - not 50-100% of the company. A lot of places have just replaced senior with staff/principal engineers instead, but senior used to be a well respected and unique title back in the days.

Silhouette 3y ago
I agree with half of what you say. Senior should be a high-level position. It's a recognition of someone with solid skills and the ability to get things done. But suppose a senior is someone who can work mostly autonomously under general direction from their management and tech leadership, which I'd say is a reasonable basic definition of what "senior" level has historically meant in software development. We would expect to see a lot more people reaching that level and sticking around on a tech career path now because of the rapid growth in the industry and the greater awareness that people can be a high-level IC but not have much interest in formal leadership or management roles. Moreover there is no rule that says an employer should hire mostly juniors, some mids and only a few seniors. Good seniors are almost always disproportionately cost-effective if you can manage to hire them. The trend for rapid job-hopping has left juniors as an almost worthless hire in many cases because they probably won't be around long enough to make a good contribution in return for all the early overheads they incur. There is definitely a longer formal tech track in large organisations now. I'd say it used to be more that you reached senior and then any other responsibilities like leading a team or dealing with large-scale software architecture issues were kind of attached. So historically you'd associate those higher responsibilities with "senior" people where today those with the skills and experience to do them probably have higher job titles like lead/staff/principal instead. So I'm not sure senior has been deflated or replaced by staff etc. It's just that senior used to be the top of three levels for many employers but now there's more recognition that your development doesn't just stop after a few years and "senior" today mostly means "first few years as a senior" in old terminology.
- re-thc 3y ago
  > But suppose a senior is someone who can work mostly autonomously under general direction from their management and tech leadership, which I'd say is a reasonable basic definition of what "senior" level has historically meant in software development. That's where I disagree. A senior should do a lot more than that. Seniors would mentor and train juniors. Software or not - that's how it's traditionally been. What you describe is more like an engineer (no senior). Juniors are the 1s that can't work autonomously. When you are recognized as fully fitting the role you're just that. A senior then excels the role. > We would expect to see a lot more people reaching that level and sticking around on a tech career path now What does this have to do with what roles are available in an organization? I start a company. I have 1 CTO, 1 tech lead, 2 seniors and the rest are engineers. What level someone is at should not impact what I call the titles available, but to suit the current market, instead we have 1 CTO, 1 principal engineer, 2 staff engineer, 1 tech lead, some seniors and a few engineers. Same same. No 1 actually grew additional roles. It's all a trick to make people think they've levelled up.
  - Silhouette 3y ago
    Seniors would mentor and train juniors. I agree that was typically also something that came in at senior level. Maybe it's a regional thing? I'm in the UK. I'd say it was fairly standard here for a junior to be someone in the first couple of years on the job who was still learning the ropes and probably couldn't do much beyond very basic grunt work without the assistance of someone more senior. Losing the "junior" label came when you got beyond the near-full-time hand-holding and started doing routine stuff independently. The "senior" label came when you could do the less routine or more difficult stuff mostly independently as well. What does this have to do with what roles are available in an organization? It means an organisation that wants to hire a senior-heavy team can now do so. That wasn't realistic for most organisations a decade ago because there weren't enough seniors to go around.
    - re-thc 3y ago
      > It means an organisation that wants to hire a senior-heavy team can now do so. That wasn't realistic for most organisations a decade ago because there weren't enough seniors to go around. There are 2 distinctions and that's what might be confusing. 1 is your experience/level and what you're referring to. The other is the roles an organization offers. I might have 50 years of experience but if the other roles are taken by more qualified people in THAT organization I can take a normal engineer route. Doesn't have to be senior. It doesn't make myself not qualified to even be a CTO elsewhere. The roles are fixed. It has to do with budget, balanced, etc. Having all seniors might mean fights and everyone wanting to contribute and pull the project in different directions. A good balance is needed. A senior heavy team might not be good just because you can.

ryanbrunner 3y ago

This is really startup / tech titles as a whole. If anything engineering has avoided the rampant title inflation that has been commonplace among other departments (try finding a sales rep who isn't at least a senior / director).