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Does anybody think that all the Sr. Engineers they work with are of the same value and experience? Why do we need separate job titles? It's OK to have a continu

Does anybody think that all the Sr. Engineers they work with are of the same value and experience? Why do we need separate job titles? It's OK to have a continuum of skills within a job, as you develop and grow. I think if an engineer is inclined to leadership, and has grown T-shaped in some way, then a Sr Engineer title after 3 years doesn't concern me. A successful engineer with 3 years experience is vastly more valuable to me on a team than an engineer right out of school. And I'd much rather have "Engineer, Sr. Engineer, Principal Engineer" than "Junior Engineer, Engineer, Sr. Engineer".

wheaties 11y ago
I have worked with some incredible engineers in my life in 5 different companies and several divisions within those companies. I have met but a handful of senior devs who had what, when I was greener, an innate or better yet sixth sense as to what/how things should be done. The rest are intermediate developers. While I would love to believe a 3yr. engineer could be "senior" I've never met one who has the indepth knowledge to play the role. Also, many companies have created multi-tier systems: Jr. Eng, Software Engineer, Sr. Engineer, Lead Engineer, Principal Eng, and so on
yeukhon 11y ago
My thought exactly. Sometimes it is just about pay grade and rewarding people with a title. I am not saying you should not speak your true mind to a SVP or ESVP, but you should expect that people with more prominent title have more authority and more say, because ultimately someone has to make a decision on yay or nay. I feel finding a place where you can truly have impact even as a junior is incredibly important, if not, more than a title. People respect those who work hard, capable and honest, but title still matter.
vonmoltke 11y ago
My former employer's titles went Engineer, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Senior Principal Engineer, Fellow, Senior Fellow, Principal Fellow. Each "Engineer" title had two levels, and one needed to be in each level at least two years in order to advance, so a "Senior" needed a minimum of four years. In practice, you needed more unless you had an advanced degree.
derefr 11y ago
The "seniority" titles don't really measure anything useful; that's why they don't really transfer between companies. A "senior engineer" might become a "lead engineer" or just an "engineer" at a different company—which means there's no objective measurement going on there. I much prefer a guild-like system for measuring actual aptitude: • apprentices know one thing well enough to do it (the average "Java developer"); • journeymen have a good picture of the field, know what "the best tool for the job" is in most cases (even if they don't know that tool), and have the meta-skill required to efficiently pick up a new language/framework/paradigm/whatever else in order to solve a problem that requires it; • masters have enough experience to flinch away from bad design/architecture. They've been burned by every category of problem it's been possible to be burned by, such that they have a complete high-level picture of all the moment-to-moment considerations involved in "the art." They know what questions to ask about a proposed pull request to determine its quality. To get here, they've likely completed a major "masterpiece" work on their own, and maintained it under heavy use by others. These aren't categories that match social standing, or seniority, or experience, per se. In fact, they don't even form a tight match to the kind of "skill" people look for in job ads; you can become a "master" at 15 if you accidentally build something really popular, even though you still need a cheat sheet to remind you what's in your language's stdlib. But these categories are able to be objectively fit to people (it's pretty clear in which one a particular person sits); they can be carried between organizations with no loss of meaning; each category is a strict superset of the skills of the former; and they tell you something that's very useful to know. Interestingly, it would be fully possible to set up an educational curriculum that could make every graduate a "master" by the criteria above. Right now, though, colleges only make apprentices. Companies sort of make journeymen, though rarely. And no part of "the system" has any chance of making someone into a master; they have to pursue such a trial on their own.

wheaties 11y ago

I have worked with some incredible engineers in my life in 5 different companies and several divisions within those companies. I have met but a handful of senior devs who had what, when I was greener, an innate or better yet sixth sense as to what/how things should be done. The rest are intermediate developers. While I would love to believe a 3yr. engineer could be "senior" I've never met one who has the indepth knowledge to play the role. Also, many companies have created multi-tier systems: Jr. Eng, Software Engineer, Sr. Engineer, Lead Engineer, Principal Eng, and so on

yeukhon 11y ago

My thought exactly. Sometimes it is just about pay grade and rewarding people with a title. I am not saying you should not speak your true mind to a SVP or ESVP, but you should expect that people with more prominent title have more authority and more say, because ultimately someone has to make a decision on yay or nay. I feel finding a place where you can truly have impact even as a junior is incredibly important, if not, more than a title. People respect those who work hard, capable and honest, but title still matter.

vonmoltke 11y ago

My former employer's titles went Engineer, Senior Engineer, Principal Engineer, Senior Principal Engineer, Fellow, Senior Fellow, Principal Fellow. Each "Engineer" title had two levels, and one needed to be in each level at least two years in order to advance, so a "Senior" needed a minimum of four years. In practice, you needed more unless you had an advanced degree.

derefr 11y ago

The "seniority" titles don't really measure anything useful; that's why they don't really transfer between companies. A "senior engineer" might become a "lead engineer" or just an "engineer" at a different company—which means there's no objective measurement going on there. I much prefer a guild-like system for measuring actual aptitude: • apprentices know one thing well enough to do it (the average "Java developer"); • journeymen have a good picture of the field, know what "the best tool for the job" is in most cases (even if they don't know that tool), and have the meta-skill required to efficiently pick up a new language/framework/paradigm/whatever else in order to solve a problem that requires it; • masters have enough experience to flinch away from bad design/architecture. They've been burned by every category of problem it's been possible to be burned by, such that they have a complete high-level picture of all the moment-to-moment considerations involved in "the art." They know what questions to ask about a proposed pull request to determine its quality. To get here, they've likely completed a major "masterpiece" work on their own, and maintained it under heavy use by others. These aren't categories that match social standing, or seniority, or experience, per se. In fact, they don't even form a tight match to the kind of "skill" people look for in job ads; you can become a "master" at 15 if you accidentally build something really popular, even though you still need a cheat sheet to remind you what's in your language's stdlib. But these categories are able to be objectively fit to people (it's pretty clear in which one a particular person sits); they can be carried between organizations with no loss of meaning; each category is a strict superset of the skills of the former; and they tell you something that's very useful to know. Interestingly, it would be fully possible to set up an educational curriculum that could make every graduate a "master" by the criteria above. Right now, though, colleges only make apprentices. Companies sort of make journeymen, though rarely. And no part of "the system" has any chance of making someone into a master; they have to pursue such a trial on their own.