8 ms·

This essentially is why senior engineers get much bigger salaries

by nikanj 2y ago

mulmen 2y ago
As a total newbie I saved my company a quarter million dollars in Oracle licensing in a single afternoon by rewriting a PL/SQL function. That change was a few lines of SQL. Seniors don’t have a monopoly on good ideas. Salary is driven by market conditions and nothing else. It is not an approximation of merit or even delivered value.
- close04 2y ago
  Statistically speaking a senior (more experienced) engineer is more likely to consistently deliver time saving results, while a junior is more likely to occasionally do it, if ever. Proving it’s not a one time thing is what pushes you in the salary and seniority ranking.
  - nashashmi 2y ago
    Senior engineers have less opportunity to write time consumingly careful code because they get paid so much. Much easier to throw new great hardware at it.
    - fifilura 2y ago
      Senior engineers have less time to write code period. And this is what saves the day. Code is a liability.
      - JonChesterfield 2y ago
        The corporate structures that reward people who prove especially good at building the product with more meetings and less time building the product are perhaps not optimal in their deployment of resources. Maximising the fraction of the product built by people who don't know what they're doing would however explain the emergent properties of modern software.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      Senior engineers can write time-consuming, careful code efficiently. This is why they are seniors.
- stavros 2y ago
  This is laughably false. The highly-paid, experienced seniors produce so much more value than juniors that it's not even in the same ballpark. It's also usually the kind of value that juniors don't even notice, because it's not measured in lines of code. A good junior will write a hundred lines of code in a day. A good senior will delete a hundred because they realize the user dictated a solution instead of detailing their problem, asked them, and figured out that they can solve that problem by changing a config variable somewhere.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    Yes, but they don't get paid as many times as junior engs compared to how many more times value they bring.
  - klabb3 2y ago
    Violent agree on variance in value produced. Violent disagree on that junior, senior or other titles or roles have such strong correlations. For very simple reasons: we can’t measure value, and we absolutely can’t measure value within a performance review cycle. The most devastating value destruction (aside from the rare intern deleting the prod db) that I’ve seen consistently is with senior/rockstars who introduce new tech, takes credit, moves on. There’s a reason for the term resume driven development. Think about what a negative force multiplier can do for an org.
    - stavros 2y ago
      I don't know, I think where I work we have a pretty good idea for the value each person brings. I don't know how much they're paid, but I do know how good each person is (including whether they tend to complicate things, to use exciting technologies, etc). Maybe it varies per company.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - mulmen 2y ago
        > I don't know how much they're paid But that’s the entire point you’re missing. The pay is not proportional to contribution or technical skill. It’s proportional to market forces and negotiation skill.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Not a monopoly, but a majority. Many juniors who do have that potential don't ever get put in such a situation. Junior/senior isn't necessarily about skill level; I'm sure many can find a senior with 1YOE ten times over. It's about trust both in technical and sociopolitical navigation through the job. That's only really gained with time and experience (and yes, isn't perfect. Hence, the aforementioned 1x10 senior. Still "trusted" more than a 1 year junior).
- dehugger 2y ago
  My view as a burgeoning senior dev is that the "senior" bit is generally less about coding and more about domain knowledge. Understanding the business processes of your industry, how to solicit feedback from and interact with end users, how to explain things to management/sell on ideas. If you put a junior dev in front of a panel of executives and ask them to explain requirements for a project odds are quite high they will info dump tech mumbo-jumbo. A senior should be able to explain risks, benefits, timelines, and impacted areas of the business in a manner that non technical people can easily grok.
  - vsuperpower2020 2y ago
    For me, "senior" just counts the amount of time they've been doing something. If someone isn't very good at something after putting ten thousand hours into it, they just might work at microsoft.
  - truncate 2y ago
    >> they will info dump tech mumbo-jumbo I'm mid-level engineer. Honestly, several staff+ engineers may not be spitting tech mumbo-jumbo, but they do dump all other kind of BS. Political BS, "tactical tornados"[1]. May not necessarily mean they were good at engineering, but just good with people skills. Obviously, not everyone is like that, but I would say many are. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33394287#:~:text=The%20tactical%20tornado%20is%20a,treats%20tactical%20tornadoes%20as%20heroes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33394287#:~:text=The%20....
    - skydhash 2y ago
      If it will be BS, it should be understandable BS.

This essentially is why senior engineers get much bigger salaries

by nikanj 2y ago

This essentially is why senior engineers get much bigger salaries

As a total newbie I saved my company a quarter million dollars in Oracle licensing in a single afternoon by rewriting a PL/SQL function. That change was a few lines of SQL. Seniors don’t have a monopoly on good ideas. Salary is driven by market conditions and nothing else. It is not an approximation of merit or even delivered value.

close04 2y ago
Statistically speaking a senior (more experienced) engineer is more likely to consistently deliver time saving results, while a junior is more likely to occasionally do it, if ever. Proving it’s not a one time thing is what pushes you in the salary and seniority ranking.
- nashashmi 2y ago
  Senior engineers have less opportunity to write time consumingly careful code because they get paid so much. Much easier to throw new great hardware at it.
  - fifilura 2y ago
    Senior engineers have less time to write code period. And this is what saves the day. Code is a liability.
    - JonChesterfield 2y ago
      The corporate structures that reward people who prove especially good at building the product with more meetings and less time building the product are perhaps not optimal in their deployment of resources. Maximising the fraction of the product built by people who don't know what they're doing would however explain the emergent properties of modern software.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    Senior engineers can write time-consuming, careful code efficiently. This is why they are seniors.
stavros 2y ago
This is laughably false. The highly-paid, experienced seniors produce so much more value than juniors that it's not even in the same ballpark. It's also usually the kind of value that juniors don't even notice, because it's not measured in lines of code. A good junior will write a hundred lines of code in a day. A good senior will delete a hundred because they realize the user dictated a solution instead of detailing their problem, asked them, and figured out that they can solve that problem by changing a config variable somewhere.
- mewpmewp2 2y ago
  Yes, but they don't get paid as many times as junior engs compared to how many more times value they bring.
- klabb3 2y ago
  Violent agree on variance in value produced. Violent disagree on that junior, senior or other titles or roles have such strong correlations. For very simple reasons: we can’t measure value, and we absolutely can’t measure value within a performance review cycle. The most devastating value destruction (aside from the rare intern deleting the prod db) that I’ve seen consistently is with senior/rockstars who introduce new tech, takes credit, moves on. There’s a reason for the term resume driven development. Think about what a negative force multiplier can do for an org.
  - stavros 2y ago
    I don't know, I think where I work we have a pretty good idea for the value each person brings. I don't know how much they're paid, but I do know how good each person is (including whether they tend to complicate things, to use exciting technologies, etc). Maybe it varies per company.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mulmen 2y ago
      > I don't know how much they're paid But that’s the entire point you’re missing. The pay is not proportional to contribution or technical skill. It’s proportional to market forces and negotiation skill.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Not a monopoly, but a majority. Many juniors who do have that potential don't ever get put in such a situation. Junior/senior isn't necessarily about skill level; I'm sure many can find a senior with 1YOE ten times over. It's about trust both in technical and sociopolitical navigation through the job. That's only really gained with time and experience (and yes, isn't perfect. Hence, the aforementioned 1x10 senior. Still "trusted" more than a 1 year junior).
dehugger 2y ago
My view as a burgeoning senior dev is that the "senior" bit is generally less about coding and more about domain knowledge. Understanding the business processes of your industry, how to solicit feedback from and interact with end users, how to explain things to management/sell on ideas. If you put a junior dev in front of a panel of executives and ask them to explain requirements for a project odds are quite high they will info dump tech mumbo-jumbo. A senior should be able to explain risks, benefits, timelines, and impacted areas of the business in a manner that non technical people can easily grok.
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  For me, "senior" just counts the amount of time they've been doing something. If someone isn't very good at something after putting ten thousand hours into it, they just might work at microsoft.
- truncate 2y ago
  >> they will info dump tech mumbo-jumbo I'm mid-level engineer. Honestly, several staff+ engineers may not be spitting tech mumbo-jumbo, but they do dump all other kind of BS. Political BS, "tactical tornados"[1]. May not necessarily mean they were good at engineering, but just good with people skills. Obviously, not everyone is like that, but I would say many are. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33394287#:~:text=The%20tactical%20tornado%20is%20a,treats%20tactical%20tornadoes%20as%20heroes https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33394287#:~:text=The%20....
  - skydhash 2y ago
    If it will be BS, it should be understandable BS.