How many years of experience do you think should be required until they can call themselves a senior engineer?
I think something like this makes the most sense for most people:
0-3 junior 3-7 medior 7-12 senior
Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#12Well, we all call ourselves Software Engineer, while in reality, it's pretty far from Engineering. Nothing from with that of course, just pointing out the irony.
4 years is a lot of time. A smart and learning junior, can definitely get to senior in that timeframe. In fact, seniority should not be measured in years.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#13I take issue with presenting this as “adopting the title” like it’s something that people do unilaterally - most of the time it’s the title used by their company and it would be plain stupid for an invidual to turn down a promotion and higher pay just because the title has "senior" in it.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#14This happens because you can't get hired unless you have the senior title on your resume. HR will throw you out.
This is also why you get resume driven development.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#15After 20 years in industry, I do think title inflation is a real issue. Senior is the new just "software engineer", Staff is the new Senior, and so on...
The problem isn't just an across-companies thing, within companies people generally don't really do work scoped to that role. They more-or-less continue chugging along in their role. Nobody is the "bad guy" to come and point out the mismatch.
There's also general lack of calibration across organizations at companies. Where a staff in one org is really a senior in another. And companies with poor engineering cultures don't have enough across team mobility to calibrate well.
This also happens because people want to get paid more and managers want to retain them. Seniors cap out at a certain pay level. We probably should have a route for people to be really good seniors and still get paid a lot just crushing code.
This also happens just because social pressures that you should progress in your career. When I sort of think we should reward people for their growth in different ways (their ability to learn and crush any type of code) -- not just for somehow acquiring org or company wide scope, coaching others, or taking on architecture.
I think we generally don't hold high enough expectations in our field too. Depending on the culture, people basically "get away with" more without getting blunt feedback on where they should be held to a higher standard.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#16It’s just a small part of the problem. Other “engineers” get an engineering degree, have a system of licensure, etc. People don’t ordinarily get a degree in “software engineering” instead they get a degree in “computer science”. If you are an academic CS person you get ahead by writing papers, not writing software. Many CS academics are great programmers but they don’t necessarily have to be. There are all sorts of d…
> Another thing that bugs me is the blog postings describing career paths in what used to be called FAANG where job titles are weirdly specialized like the language used by sexual subcultures like BDSM and polyarmory.
What?? Do you have a link to something like this? BDSM-references seem highly inappropriate in a work setting.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#17It’s just a small part of the problem. Other “engineers” get an engineering degree, have a system of licensure, etc. People don’t ordinarily get a degree in “software engineering” instead they get a degree in “computer science”. If you are an academic CS person you get ahead by writing papers, not writing software. Many CS academics are great programmers but they don’t necessarily have to be. There are all sorts of d…
> Another thing that bugs me is the blog postings describing career paths in what used to be called FAANG where job titles are weirdly specialized like the language used by sexual subcultures like BDSM and polyarmory. What?? Do you have a link to something like this? BDSM-references seem highly inappropriate in a work setting.
You know that Depeche Mode song Master and Servant that has the line "it's a lot like life?"
Links would be really NSFW but if you really want to know I suggest you create an account on Fetlife though the way I see it, that site is what you'd get if Eternal September had an Eternal September and that had an Eternal September again.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#18I have 10+ years of experience. This isn't a new trend, it's been like this for at least my entire tenure in software engineering.
In my experience, the hiring industry is decently calibrated to specific skills rather than specific titles. I've rejected Principals at FAANGs before, simply because they lacked requisite skills.
I have no comment on whether or not this is good or bad. All I can say is that this is the status quo, and that the companies I've seen are quite used to it. I think organizations need ways to reward people for their tenure, and the easiest way to do it is via title.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#19It’s just a small part of the problem. Other “engineers” get an engineering degree, have a system of licensure, etc. People don’t ordinarily get a degree in “software engineering” instead they get a degree in “computer science”. If you are an academic CS person you get ahead by writing papers, not writing software. Many CS academics are great programmers but they don’t necessarily have to be. There are all sorts of d…
Other engineers also do sloppy jobs. HN simply puts too much credit to other engineers out there. On the other side, we do have our certifications for some career paths though, like cloud and security, but I'm not sure if they instill confidence for hiring managers if such is not required by government. Programming is supposed to be reachable and doable by anyone who loves it. We already have walls for many other thi…
One trouble w/ the certifications is they are generally around some specific technology and not principles.
For instance I had no problem at all switching from Java to C# and there's a certain kind of developer who is not intimidated at all in starting in a new job in a language they don't know. (e.g. even as a consultant I had other people pay me to get started in Python)
The certifications however are always for Red Hat or Microsoft or Oracle or AWS, something that is either proprietary or that tries to package something open source as if it was proprietary. In some cases these programs are pretty good (MSCE was pretty rigorous back in the day) but they add to the fragmentation of the industry.
Re: Ask HN: Is this behavior disrespecting our profession?
#20It's at least ten years too late to be complaining about this, probably closer to fifteen. "Senior" doesn't mean anything anymore other than perhaps having more than zero experience and should be treated as a null word when encountered on a resume.