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Could we get rid of this "junior/senior" crap? I have never worked anywhere it was ever useful. You are a programmer - that's it. The only people that think ot

Could we get rid of this "junior/senior" crap? I have never worked anywhere it was ever useful. You are a programmer - that's it. The only people that think otherwise are self-agrandising so-called "seniors".

SamuelAdams 3y ago
Junior / senior / staff titles are typically used for HR to justify a lower salary (typically called pay band) . It artificially suppresses your salary even though all roles do extremely similar work.
- tstrimple 3y ago
  If your staff engineers are doing extremely similar work as your junior engineers, you've either got garbage staff engineers or you're criminally abusing your juniors. It shouldn't be surprising that a developer with a couple decades of real experience work differently and have different areas of focus than someone fresh out of college. This isn't saying that every dev with 20 years of experience is significantly better than fresh out of college devs. But it's crazy to ignore the different experience can make.
  - orwin 3y ago
    I think better terms should be describing general expert/domain expert/company expert. I'll say it takes 3 to 18 months to become a domain expert at a company depending on the scope, if you are fresh out of school. Less if you already have relevant experience. And then years to become company/subject expert, and those you have to pay to keep them.
- blackmesaind 3y ago
  This is a ridiculous take only justifiable by those who are juniors. I'd agree that Senior+ the titles are mostly meaningless, but the distinction between a junior (Not able to complete full projects independently) and a senior (Able to lead teams / able to solo complete projects) is very needed.
bityard 3y ago
The line between Junior and senior is arbitrary, but there is a difference. The difference is not skill, but experience. And experience cannot be learned from boot camps or man pages.

SamuelAdams 3y ago

Junior / senior / staff titles are typically used for HR to justify a lower salary (typically called pay band) . It artificially suppresses your salary even though all roles do extremely similar work.

tstrimple 3y ago
If your staff engineers are doing extremely similar work as your junior engineers, you've either got garbage staff engineers or you're criminally abusing your juniors. It shouldn't be surprising that a developer with a couple decades of real experience work differently and have different areas of focus than someone fresh out of college. This isn't saying that every dev with 20 years of experience is significantly better than fresh out of college devs. But it's crazy to ignore the different experience can make.
- orwin 3y ago
  I think better terms should be describing general expert/domain expert/company expert. I'll say it takes 3 to 18 months to become a domain expert at a company depending on the scope, if you are fresh out of school. Less if you already have relevant experience. And then years to become company/subject expert, and those you have to pay to keep them.
blackmesaind 3y ago
This is a ridiculous take only justifiable by those who are juniors. I'd agree that Senior+ the titles are mostly meaningless, but the distinction between a junior (Not able to complete full projects independently) and a senior (Able to lead teams / able to solo complete projects) is very needed.

bityard 3y ago

The line between Junior and senior is arbitrary, but there is a difference. The difference is not skill, but experience. And experience cannot be learned from boot camps or man pages.