Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

neilkakkar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 129 posts

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#91

Post by onion2k »

room500 wrote: post #87
onion2k wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 engineer…

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?

Moving someone up to a senior role is giving them the opportunity to take on more responsibility and develop their skills. Very few people are promoted to a senior role already knowing how to manage a team well or how to balance requirements. The expectation is that they've shown an aptitude and potential in a mid-level role, and that they'll learn those skills after they're promoted in to the new role.

Promoting someone to senior isn't a reward for already doing everything a senior does. If you treat people that way, and give mid-level people the responsibilities of senior roles without the pay or title, then they will leave very quickly to get jobs where they do the work of a senior with the pay and title of a senior.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#92

Post by tarsinge »

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…

Pure technical expertise alone is not enough to make you senior IMO, I would say it's your capacity to successfully conduct projects in many political or technical contexts, given the constraints (time, money, etc...). Also understand and deliver business value, and talk with decision makers. At least that's the biggest difference between 20 and 30 years old me.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#93

Post by riffraff »

whymauri wrote: post #64
aronpye wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, this strikes me as an unnecessarily rude dismissal of the difficulty of engineering at scale this might sound crazy, but some people are actually just good at their jobs and will, naturally, progress quicker than others.

I interpreted that more as a difference in the potential problems you may cause rather than the skills required, as GP referred to "responsibility".

If FB goes down, people waste less time online[0], if a guidance system fails people may die.

[0] yes, of course there are people whose livelihood depends on cat memes, but I'm making a generic example.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#94

Post by jcbrand »

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…

The web didn't pop into existence out of the void. There were various substrate and precursor technologies that existed before the web was invented, and when the web was new, you'd expect engineers to know and understand these technologies as well.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#95

Post by bauerd »

mellosouls wrote: post #82
switch11 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Time is money

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#96

Post by mellosouls »

bauerd wrote: post #95
mellosouls wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Time is money

That saying is why I suggested time as a more useful (but still limited) alternative.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#97

Post by doonesbury »

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…

Agree. Nothing about this reads senior engineer. The writing is quite lacking. The material isn't technical, or engineering oriented. It's essentially self promotion.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#99

Post by tarsinge »

onion2k wrote: post #91
room500 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 engineer…

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? Moving someone up to a senior role is giving them the opportunity to take on more responsibility and develop their skills. Very few people are promoted to a senior role already knowing how to manage a team well or how to balance requirements. The expectation is that they've sh…

It's not a matter of skill but of experience. An engineer after a few years has usually been exposed to a lot of the countless failures projects/teams/management/companies that can happen, and so hopefully will have a much better idea of how to increase the chances of success.

Re: Things I Learned to Become a Senior Software Engineer

#100

Post by bobbylcraig »

slumdev wrote: post #58

I live in flyover country, so adjust these numbers for your locale. There are "seniors" who make $60,000 per year. No joke. And there are seniors who make $140,000 per year (in a rather low cost area.) The PHBs have figured out that we are vain and can be lured by shiny titles. We shouldn't go out of our way to make it easier on them. Software engineer is a working class profession. Lusting after title plumage hurts…

I like this take. Personally, I know that I'd _for sure_ take a job with a greater amount of pay, benefits, and work-life balance if I was going to be "down-leveled". Heck, if I'm down-leveled and being paid more, that likely means I'm working with more skilled engineers.
Post reply on HN