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I am an EM that manages several senior engineers currently. I find it super common for senior engineers to get promoted mostly on technical merit, we end up thi

I am an EM that manages several senior engineers currently. I find it super common for senior engineers to get promoted mostly on technical merit, we end up thinking the rest "can be coached". Or it's coaching to the next level. Here are some areas I coach them on: - influencing without authority. Managing up. Leadership. - getting work prioritized - providing useful performance feedback (promos etc) - coaching and giving feedback to early career engineers - communicating ideas effectively - developing 1YP+ plans for their areas. - idk, there are a lot, senior engineers are rarely "complete"

parthdesai 8mo ago
I'm sorry, but if a senior engineer needs coaching on getting work prioritized, they are not a senior engineer.
- johngunderman 8mo ago
  I interpret this comment as talking about prioritization across a broader org. A senior engineer should be able to prioritize inside of their team and adjacent teams. But there is a reason why there are levels of engineer beyond senior - beyond just increased technical judgement, there is increased influence in orgs spanning hundreds or even thousands of engineers. There is always opportunity for growth in this dimension. For example even the CEO has to build the right skills to convince the board of their priorities.
- ecshafer 8mo ago
  I worked with someone who had 30 years of experience, and would routinely go down rabbit holes of minimal value that they thought were valuable. Days spending on local environment setup and configuration scripts, for multiple platforms, when it only took a few commands to start everything up in a few seconds. Or making custom patterns to "improve maintainability" of the code base, that were brittle, overly abstract, and confusing.
  - parthdesai 8mo ago
    Well in my opinion, they really aren't a senior engineer then. 30 years of experience doesn't automatically mean you're a senior engineer IMO. To me, you can trust a senior engineer to get the project done properly without any oversight
_tlo4 8mo ago
> Influencing without authority > Getting work prioritized > Developing 1YP+ plans for their areas I was a little surprised by your list. Aren't these normally the responsibilities of a team lead or a manager? If I were hired as a senior engineer, I'd expect to be involved in group decisions about cross-cutting technical concerns (architecture, choosing languages and frameworks, the code review process), but changing my team's priorities would fall well outside the job description. If somebody has the power to tell me what to prioritise, it feels topsy-turvy for them to ask me to tell them what they should tell me to prioritise. At that point, why have a leader at all?
- ratorx 8mo ago
  Team lead manages the overall direction of the team (and is possibly the expert on some portions), but for an individual subsystem a senior engineer might be the expert. For work coming from outside the team, it’s sort of upto your management chain and team lead to prioritise. But for internally driven work (tech debt reduction, reliability/efficiency improvements etc) often the senior engineer has a better idea of the priorities for their area of expertise. Prioritisation between the two is often a bit more collaborative and as a senior engineer you have to justify why thing X is super critical (not just propose that thing X needs to be done). I view the goal of managers + lead as more balancing the various things the team could be doing (especially externally) and the goal of a senior engineer is to be an input to the process for a specific system they know most about.
  - _tlo4 8mo ago
    I agree, but I think that input is limited to unopinionated information about the technical impact or user-facing impact of each task. I don't think it can be said that senior engineers persuade their leaders to take one position or the other, because you can't really argue against a political or financial decision using technical or altruistic arguments, especially when you have no access to the political or financial context in which these decisions are made. In those conversations, "we need to do this for the good of the business" is an unbeatable move.
    - 8mo ago

parthdesai 8mo ago

I'm sorry, but if a senior engineer needs coaching on getting work prioritized, they are not a senior engineer.

johngunderman 8mo ago
I interpret this comment as talking about prioritization across a broader org. A senior engineer should be able to prioritize inside of their team and adjacent teams. But there is a reason why there are levels of engineer beyond senior - beyond just increased technical judgement, there is increased influence in orgs spanning hundreds or even thousands of engineers. There is always opportunity for growth in this dimension. For example even the CEO has to build the right skills to convince the board of their priorities.
ecshafer 8mo ago
I worked with someone who had 30 years of experience, and would routinely go down rabbit holes of minimal value that they thought were valuable. Days spending on local environment setup and configuration scripts, for multiple platforms, when it only took a few commands to start everything up in a few seconds. Or making custom patterns to "improve maintainability" of the code base, that were brittle, overly abstract, and confusing.
- parthdesai 8mo ago
  Well in my opinion, they really aren't a senior engineer then. 30 years of experience doesn't automatically mean you're a senior engineer IMO. To me, you can trust a senior engineer to get the project done properly without any oversight

_tlo4 8mo ago

> Influencing without authority > Getting work prioritized > Developing 1YP+ plans for their areas I was a little surprised by your list. Aren't these normally the responsibilities of a team lead or a manager? If I were hired as a senior engineer, I'd expect to be involved in group decisions about cross-cutting technical concerns (architecture, choosing languages and frameworks, the code review process), but changing my team's priorities would fall well outside the job description. If somebody has the power to tell me what to prioritise, it feels topsy-turvy for them to ask me to tell them what they should tell me to prioritise. At that point, why have a leader at all?

ratorx 8mo ago
Team lead manages the overall direction of the team (and is possibly the expert on some portions), but for an individual subsystem a senior engineer might be the expert. For work coming from outside the team, it’s sort of upto your management chain and team lead to prioritise. But for internally driven work (tech debt reduction, reliability/efficiency improvements etc) often the senior engineer has a better idea of the priorities for their area of expertise. Prioritisation between the two is often a bit more collaborative and as a senior engineer you have to justify why thing X is super critical (not just propose that thing X needs to be done). I view the goal of managers + lead as more balancing the various things the team could be doing (especially externally) and the goal of a senior engineer is to be an input to the process for a specific system they know most about.
- _tlo4 8mo ago
  I agree, but I think that input is limited to unopinionated information about the technical impact or user-facing impact of each task. I don't think it can be said that senior engineers persuade their leaders to take one position or the other, because you can't really argue against a political or financial decision using technical or altruistic arguments, especially when you have no access to the political or financial context in which these decisions are made. In those conversations, "we need to do this for the good of the business" is an unbeatable move.
  - 8mo ago