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We found a DOGE guy at NASA because his Google Calendar was public
- slater 2y agohttps://archive.ph/AxuTg https://archive.ph/AxuTg
- slater 2y agoRiley Sennott, 26, is listed as a "senior advisor" Senior? At 26?!
- cratermoon 2y agoI've seen it asserted with a straight face (and confirmed by real promotions) that as little experience as 3 years, and definitely 5, is qualified for "senior".
- Alupis 2y agoThat argument has been had right here on HN many times. So many people will defend someone with just a smidge of experience as being Senior or equivalent in their organization. The issue is there's no industry standard, so one company's Senior is another company's Junior. I'd argue without compromise someone with less than 5 years of experience cannot possibly be Senior-anything. Probably should be closer to the 10 year mark... but many will disagree and cite ridiculous company title-scales, including "Level" this and that. There's tremendous pressure to inflate people's titles to make them feel important - which realistically means people's titles are useless. Hence, "Senior" Engineers complaining about being asked to do L33T code assignments in interviews...
- fallingknife 2y agoIf nobody can be "senior" at less than 5 years, your skill threshold for senior precludes 99% of engineers from ever being senior.
- Alupis 2y agoI don't follow. Are you suggesting people retire and/or change industries as they hit the 5 year mark? If you're going to spend a 30-40 year career doing something, it should take a long while before you can be considered "Senior". At 5 years, you're probably still making rookie mistakes and having actually experienced engineers clean up after and/or guide you.
- fallingknife 2y agoWhat I'm saying is that the very best engineers are at a higher level with 5 YOE than 99% of engineers are ever capable of reaching. e.g. Linus Torvalds was 21 when the first version of Linux was released. I couldn't come close to that now with 10 YOE.
- Alupis 2y agoI fundamentally disagree. I regularly interface with people that have more than 5 years and are entirely unequipped to code their way out of a paper bag, let alone work unsupervised, lead a team, understand the overall system that's being designed, and more. They have little knowledge outside whatever pet language they've sunk all of their time into, and even then, little knowledge outside of a narrow set of tools/practices. That's not "Senior". That's someone getting their feet wet in an ever-changing industry that requires a certain level of thirst for knowledge and continued learning. There's always exceptions - and some people are stellar in every way. But on average, 5 years of experience is still training wheels for a great deal of people. > Linus Torvalds was 21 when the first version of Linux was released. This is like pointing to Bill Gates or Michael Jordan and saying everyone can do that... Linus is the fabled 10X Rockstar of programming.
- fallingknife 2y agoYou have moved the goalposts from > I'd argue without compromise someone with less than 5 years of experience cannot possibly be Senior-anything To: > There's always exceptions - and some people are stellar in every way. But on average, 5 years of experience is still training wheels for a great deal of people So we are in agreement.
- bityard 2y agoYou can make it to Senior Airman (the 4th enlisted rank) in the US Air Force in just two years. Take that, software devs. Amended: The tech company I'm in now doesn't really hire any engineering position at less than Senior with 5~10 YOE except interns and in departments that they are desperate to fill seats. (Now is a GREAT time to be an AI engineer, you can pretty much name your price.)
- cratermoon 2y agothe 4th enlisted rank is E-4, out of 9, which makes that rank roughly upper junior to low mid-career. If you take into account the officer ranks, where all the leadership decisions are made, an E-4 is barely above entry level.
- Freedom2 2y ago[flagged]
- acdha 2y agoSenior is a metric of experience and that takes more than intellectual depth but also breadth which you can’t get that quickly. You need time to work with different people, tempos, stacks, etc. which takes more than a few years to internalize.
- slater 2y agoperhaps the DOGE team is that great Ha, good one!
- cratermoon 2y agoI'd argue that no software engineer behaving as sloppily as this guy – and apparently all of DOGE, from reports I've read – should ever be near a senior title. At any company I ran their title would likely be dismissed.
- cjoelrun 2y agoIn consulting/finance isn't everybody started at VP level to make clients feel at ease.
- pllbnk 2y agoLong time ago the European company I worked for tried getting into the US market. They embarked on looking for potential clients and partners. Soon after they discovered that the American counterparts wouldn't even want to talk to them let alone schedule formal meetings if the titles were "project manager", "product manager" or similar. The company started changing roles renaming most managers to VPs.
- bitwize 2y agoKinda reminds me of how I'd bump into 21-year-old Mormon "elders" on the train.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- marcuschong 2y agoIf I was Russia or China, I'd have entire teams focused on exploring the spoils of everything DOGE is doing. The sheer velocity alone should be enough to wreak havoc and create many exploit opportunities.
- dinfinity 2y agoGiven the kids active at DOGE, the "move fast and break things" mentality, shown lack of regard for security, and the ridiculous level of access they have, the entire agency has to be the biggest and softest attack surface of the entire American government ever. Russian and Chinese hackers are having a field day, I'm sure.