Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer • Hacker News Board

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#81

Post by nthj » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

iso1631 wrote: post #66

geofft wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can maintain other people's monstrosities and quickly learn the lessons. There's a couple of folks at work who joined straight out of college a few years back and ended up with ownership of a terribly-designed production system that everyone else depends on, and they've been doing a solid job of switching it over to a reasonable architecture while it's running. I don't know what title they have but I'd certainly…

Everything thinks the crap they inherit is terrible. Everyone thinks they can rebuild it in a far better way. Everyone then passes their project on to someone else, who thinks the crap they inherit is terrible.

I agree, and this is why I mentor my engineers to replace the phrase technical debt with specific qualities that are impacted by technical choices:

* Resistant to future change

* Won’t scale past x units

* Prone to operational issues

* Exposes us to liability or compliance risk

* Increases ongoing maintenance costs

Any large initiative to replace "crap" should map to specific product quality attributes that stakeholders and leadership buy in to, and ultimately be justifiable back to COGS or churn mitigation. In this way, objectively, a system can be $10M better because it e.g. closes $10M in customer tickets.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#82

Post by mellosouls » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

switch11 wrote: post #78

starfleet_bop wrote: post #23

It seems millennial achievement medals have now become job titles. Two years to become a senior engineer out of college is a joke. You only just know how to work in a general sense in that time frame, domain expertise comes much later. After a University degree, you only really know what page in your textbook to turn to when you recognise a problem. I come from a mechanical engineering background and it probably take…

I agree 100% with you Have worked as both PM and developer and now run my own very small software company A) two years senior engineer is like one of those consulting companies where everyone in 2 years becomes DIRECTOR B) In two years most new programmers have not even gotten their heads out of their asses C) You should refer to Outliers 10,000 hours to master a task And to that add 10,000 hours to make your first m…

E) a title like 'Senior Software Engineer' should be reserved for someone who has MADE and SHIPPED and GENERATED MONEY

Not all software is made to make money.

There is a more convincing argument that saving time is a motivator in a significant proportion of software either directly or indirectly; but honestly that ugly assumption of monetary motivation in everything of value is quite alienating to some of us - even in something as benign (?) as a discussion here.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#83

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #20

To start with, "Senior" and related titles basically mean a person who doesn't need much hand-holding. This might be related to time spent, but often you find there's a lot of variation. People I consider senior software engineers have a can-do-anything vibe about them. They have a wide range of skills in the field, and have that T-shaped experience profile: there's some area they seem to know everything about, and t…

> To start with, "Senior" and related titles basically mean a person who doesn't need much hand-holding.

I'd call this "not junior". To me, "senior" would be the person leading a small multi-person effort or doing the hand-holding of junior engineers.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#84

Post by Schatel » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:38 PM UTC

I'm disagreeing with this statement while liking the general direction and content of it!

"There was only so much I could do to improve my coding skills. Most blogs epousing techniques to write cleaner code, repeating yourself, not repeating yourself, etc. are micro-optimisations. Almost none of them would make me instantly impactful."

I do expect a Senior Software Engineer to be good in programming. Because mastering programming is, what you do due working with it every day. The basics should just be.

Doesn't matter how impactful those are. Your role is to sure look left and right, but the road you are on is becoming an expert in what you are doing.

And generally speaking about the Senior title: I think from reading it, he does look in the right directions and it could be that he is already there but for me, Seniority become a thing not after understanding all of that stuff but actually incorporating it in a way that it became second nature and honestly, it took me years and a handful of core experiences along the way. But who am i to determine his seniority through a blog? :)

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#85

Post by bryanrasmussen » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #79

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you follow that timeline, there would be plenty of people who were millionaires and on their second or third startup board before reaching "senior". What does being a successful entrepreneur have to do with being a senior engineer?

Well indeed. If you can write an app well enough to earn a million dollars, what use do you have for other people's opinion of your seniority?

I guess, although the arrow of time moving as it does I probably wouldn't want Jerry Yang developing my web app despite the great success with the last one he made.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#86

Post by giaour » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

aronpye wrote: post #43

spectramax wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of “senior” is vague and subjective. When you try to say objective things such as “6-8 years to become senior”, that’s meaningless because “senior” is undefined.

Obviously becoming a senior engineer shouldn’t be based on tenure alone. In my experience, 6-8 years is roughly how long it takes to acquire enough skills, both technical, people, business, and safety in order to become responsible for a piece of work. Being a senior engineer at Facebook where your responsible for making sure Cat memes load more quickly, and a senior engineer for an industrial control systems company…

> Being a senior engineer at Facebook where your responsible for making sure Cat memes load more quickly

Hey now, don’t underestimate the technical challenges inherent in weaponizing misinformation at scale.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#87

Post by room500 » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #55

starfleet_bop wrote: post #23

It seems millennial achievement medals have now become job titles. Two years to become a senior engineer out of college is a joke. You only just know how to work in a general sense in that time frame, domain expertise comes much later. After a University degree, you only really know what page in your textbook to turn to when you recognise a problem. I come from a mechanical engineering background and it probably take…

I think people forget just how new the web industry is. The web itself has literally only existed since 1992. It's only been commercially viable to charge people for websites since around 1995. Web development in the modern 'building apps that are accessed in a browser' sense has only been done for about 20 years. If you're talking about 'single page apps' that drops to about 10 years. Someone with 2 years experience…

From a technical standpoint, I agree that good people can reach the bar of senior engineer very quickly - potentially right out of school.

However, there are aspects of a senior engineer role that are not commonly learned in school or by hacking on hobby projects. How do you effectively lead a project? How do you balance requirements? How do you say no to stakeholders? How do you balance time vs quality?

All engineers need to be good at the technical side of the job. But as you rise in seniority, the job includes more and more judgement calls. Those judgement calls require years of experience.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#88

Post by jpangs88 » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

starfleet_bop wrote: post #23

It seems millennial achievement medals have now become job titles. Two years to become a senior engineer out of college is a joke. You only just know how to work in a general sense in that time frame, domain expertise comes much later. After a University degree, you only really know what page in your textbook to turn to when you recognise a problem. I come from a mechanical engineering background and it probably take…

So I very much agree with the sentiment I started writing a similar comment, but if you scroll down to the very last sentence (it's a bullet point) of the article it says that the author is not a senior engineer.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#89

Post by lmilcin » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 1:54 PM UTC

It's a good start but still some way to "Senior". Keep up the good work.

Now, it is easy to start giving "tips", but I think nothing replace good old learning on your own mistakes. Thus, the only tip I can give is to be reflective and honest with yourself to be able to learn and grow.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#90

Post by phist_mcgee » Mon, Sep 07, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

starfleet_bop wrote: post #23

It seems millennial achievement medals have now become job titles. Two years to become a senior engineer out of college is a joke. You only just know how to work in a general sense in that time frame, domain expertise comes much later. After a University degree, you only really know what page in your textbook to turn to when you recognise a problem. I come from a mechanical engineering background and it probably take…

Oh boo boo. And who gave those millennials those achievement medals? Their boomer and gen x parents. Stop blaming young people for problems that existed before they were born.