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Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#51

Post by yesno »

mikeryan wrote: post #40
yesno wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, let me give more "less painful" advise: 1) Don't quit your job, start consulting on the side 2) Don't quit your job, start a product on the side Both options won't cut paycheck. Take calculated risk. OP is no longer a 24 years old super smart developer.

So I can't speak to his particular situation. But in general I disagree with this. I think quitting the job is the most important part. Consulting is the safety. "Leap and the net will appear" - John Burroughs

That is assuming everything will go well: this person will get a few customers ASAP, within 1 week or 2, to stay a float for at least 1 - 1.5 years.

Consulting requires networks and connections. If the person stick too long as a "Senior Software Developer" and rarely meet non-geek human being (potential customers), it'll be a while before the person can get a well-paying less-stressful consulting offers.

Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#52

Post by dspeyer »

My first thought is that this is the sort of problem managers are supposed to help with. If yours is a good one, raise the issue with him. Failing that, my thoughts:

It sounds like the position you want doesn't exist at your company. The next steps:

1) Figure out exactly what you want to do. Write specs? Write the most difficult code? Mentor other engineers?

2) Look carefully to see if the position exists after all, with some non-obvious name.

3) If not, figure out what employer or class of employer would have such a position.

4) Apply.

Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#53

Post by yesno »

pan69 wrote: post #42
yesno wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, let me give more "less painful" advise: 1) Don't quit your job, start consulting on the side 2) Don't quit your job, start a product on the side Both options won't cut paycheck. Take calculated risk. OP is no longer a 24 years old super smart developer.

Your advice is sound and it will definitely create security. However, what it will not create is "a sense of urgency". Follow both steps 1 and 2 and ten years from now you will find yourself still employed (by the same people?) and in the same situation. My advice would be: 1) Make sure you have at least 6 months worth of savings. 2) While you're still in your day job try to land a freelance or contract job. 3) Once…

Relying the situation to motivate you seems... um... very risky and not quite strategic.

I noticed that some people weren't born to become Jason Calacanis, Zuck, Gates, Hsieh. For these type of people, they have to play a bit safe or else they will regret their choices by cutting the oxygen lifeline and hoping by 1 year things will pick up.

Let me rephrase that: following your 1,2,3,4 steps, 10 years from now he'll probably end up either jobless, have less money in the bank, or even in less favorable situation (working for less money, worse jobs, etc).

We're using the same assumption correct? that either consulting or the product were not successful.

One gig is definitely not enough. Consultant needs to build portfolio in order to get more gigs so that they can rely less from their networks. That is to assume the OP have a pretty good connections that could help him land few gigs.

People always said that "make sure you have X-months worth of saving".

People say the following phrase quite often as well: "money is not a problem". I'll add one word to that phrase... "...yet". Money is not a problem yet (so far).

Once you started to realize that money becomes an issue, your mind will have hard time to focus and concentrate. From that point onward, whatever you'll do won't be optimal.

To sum up my advise: make sure you have a fixed stable income. Once that's taken care of, your mind will have more capacity and effort to focus on something else.

Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#54

Post by alttab »

Goladus wrote: post #37
mikeryan wrote: post #5

So there's a slight cognitive dissonance here. Outside of an architect role - the only real way up is taking on more management tasks. A lot of larger companies are seeing this as an issue so they are adding gradients to what a SSE is (SSE 1, SSE 2 etc) but really the answer is you're going to have to move up via a team leadership role and this means more management and less engineering.

A think it depends on what you mean by "management task." If you take the initiative to drive a really valuable project, can assume a leadership role while ignoring a lot of the tasks the company typically assigns to a manager, like performance reviews and meetings and ticket/bug metrics and timesheets and project plans and timelines and deadlines and fielding every request that comes your group's way. Meanwhile a go…

This comment may be lost in the fuss but shouldn't be under-rated.

You are a senior - you have mastered the technical. Time to move onto to different kinds of problems.

Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#56

Post by shorttime »

Do you want to stay at the same company? There's always the option of moving on to something new with more opportunities. Being able to do that opens a lot of doors and one can climb the ladder quicker rather than waiting for someone to retire/leave. The reason I say this is because many companies only promote people based upon the company's need and not the individual worker's merit.

Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#57

Post by jbl »

throwaway_boy wrote: post #14
apike wrote: post #4

In an organization that doesn't have a defined career path for engineers (which is to say, most organizations), you need to take responsibility for yourself if you want it. If you're on a team of engineers and nobody is leading, then step up. Help newer engineers learn skills, help interview people, help run meetings, and instigate new projects. Cook up a new product or feature, and champion it. If it goes well, you'…

You're right that more initiative will be required of me. In hindsight there were times when there was a vacuum and I could have done something (ultimately the vacuum always stayed there; noone stepped up as it would happen.) Lesson learned. Right now my company is extremely small and utterly flat (it's basically C O's and non-C O's), so there's no room to lead anything. This is really more about whatever I do next.

This is the same situation I'm in, except that I'm at the beginning of my career as a developer (despite being 30+... took a detour through grad school). I feel like it's hard to know what's up, down, left, or right at a small company or startup.

For the most part, I get my projects done, start my own in areas where I know there is pain, and advocate for other projects/solutions when I think they're applicable but I'm too swamped with my own work.

It's an issue I've been meaning to bring up with my supervisor ("So just how do I fit in? What's next?"). Is a frank discussion with your CTO out of the question?

Re: Ask HN: How do I crawl out of the "Senior Engineer" hole?

#58

Post by gnosis »

yesno wrote: post #51
mikeryan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I can't speak to his particular situation. But in general I disagree with this. I think quitting the job is the most important part. Consulting is the safety. "Leap and the net will appear" - John Burroughs

That is assuming everything will go well: this person will get a few customers ASAP, within 1 week or 2, to stay a float for at least 1 - 1.5 years. Consulting requires networks and connections. If the person stick too long as a "Senior Software Developer" and rarely meet non-geek human being (potential customers), it'll be a while before the person can get a well-paying less-stressful consulting offers.

First, if he quits he might be able to consult for the company he just quit from. They, presumably, know he's good and can do the work. So they could hire him back as a consultant (where he'll probably make more money and perhaps do more of the kind of work he's really after).

Second, if you work in the technology field, meeting geeks is a great way to find potential clients. People in the technology field tend to move around a lot from company to company and from position to position. So the developer you meet at one company today may well be a manager or even a CTO at another company tomorrow. They will probably be the very people who'll need to hire consultants at some point in the future. Make a good impression on them and keep in touch, and you'll have a nice network of contacts for consulting work down the road.

As a senior developer, I bet he's already made plenty of such contacts. Now it's just a matter of getting in touch and letting them know he's looking for consulting work.

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