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

What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

tanishqkancharla.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 199 posts

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#21

Post by ckdarby »

zero_shift wrote: post #18
neilv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For software developers, I've thought 5 years of solid work and continuous learning is about the right time horizon for a senior title, in a typical contemporary software/internet company. (At least, 5 years of seeing the lifecycle through awhile -- not job-hopping repeatedly, before getting to see cause and effect together.) I could even see that going faster than 5 years, especially in a startup. For example, say o…

I absolutely cannot agree with this. It's true that after five years in a startup, you'll have seen lots of systems. But being a senior practitioner requires deep experience as well as breadth, and enough time in the industry to recognise larger trends. There is no magic mark for this, and it's quite possible to reach ten years and still be a weak practitioner, because you were exposed to a narrow range of problems a…

It is just title inflation. A senior is one who has graduated apprenticeship and is equipped with technical knowledge to begin training an apprentice.

Are there those who are masters of their craft who call themselves a senior, of course.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#22

Post by papito »

mierz00 wrote: post #4
fake-name wrote: post #2

> senior engineer > been a professional engineer for 6 years Man, the software world is just weird.

Is it really that weird? In the military 6 years is definitely considered senior and I’m sure that’s also the case in a lot of other fields.

My friend is in the military (information technology side). We are both 40-ish. I am only beginning to feel like a senior, and he has the option to retire.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#23

Post by nhoughto »

fake-name wrote: post #2

> senior engineer > been a professional engineer for 6 years Man, the software world is just weird.

Maybe I'm the outlier but at >15 years into this job I think back on what I was like/did/thought 6 years in and shudder, at that point I never mentored anyone my junior seriously enough to influence their perception (I don't think) but if I did I'm not sure it would have been a positive influence. The lack of failures, felt pain, time to reflect.. in combination with the hubris of 20-smth youth isn't a recipe for good software engineering I don't think.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#24

Post by chrisan »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #6
mierz00 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that weird? In the military 6 years is definitely considered senior and I’m sure that’s also the case in a lot of other fields.

I think a part of this issue is that there is nothing above senior. Additionally, "seniority" is relative and can vary between different technologies: for example, I have been working as a software engineer for 25+ years, and while I have worked with Java before I am no better at it than someone who just graduated. Similarly, even though I spent nearly a decade as a frontend dev, the last time I did that professional…

Maybe on a "does it compile" and "does it work" level you might be the same as a fresh grad, but I'm sure you have years of experiences that help you make decisions and think of possible pitfalls. Plus each new language over the years is easier and easier to pick up.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#25

Post by badpun »

OJFord wrote: post #14
j7ake wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many hard sciences, 6 years is graduate school.

And a PhD would be senior to a graduate? Also the quote is 'professional', so although it's probably not the case, it doesn't preclude spending your 6 years in 'graduate school' beforehand anyway.

After PhD, people are forced to do postdocs, which are nominally junior positions.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#26

Post by ReadTheLicense »

mudrockbestgirl wrote: post #10
fake-name wrote: post #2

> senior engineer > been a professional engineer for 6 years Man, the software world is just weird.

Easy to be a senior frontend engineer. Just say you were already around when the current most hyped JS framework was released that everyone must move to, 1-2 years ago.

You mean like React (9 years ago), Angular (12 years ago) or Vue (8 years ago)? Who seriously uses anything else?

I think you confused the JS ecosystem with the C# one.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#27

Post by samsquire »

Clean code is code you and others can understand and everybody seems to have a different idea of that.

Sentence long variable names I don't like, they slow me down when thinking about or remembering what to do I'm not sure you can remember the names without Intellisense/IntelliJ autocomplete.

I don't think I would enjoy working on this codebase.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#28

Post by chrisseaton »

badpun wrote: post #25
OJFord wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a PhD would be senior to a graduate? Also the quote is 'professional', so although it's probably not the case, it doesn't preclude spending your 6 years in 'graduate school' beforehand anyway.

After PhD, people are forced to do postdocs, which are nominally junior positions.

> After PhD, people are forced to do postdocs

You don’t have to do a postdoc.

Re: What I learned working with a senior engineer as a new grad

#30

Post by zelphirkalt »

samsquire wrote: post #27

Clean code is code you and others can understand and everybody seems to have a different idea of that. Sentence long variable names I don't like, they slow me down when thinking about or remembering what to do I'm not sure you can remember the names without Intellisense/IntelliJ autocomplete. I don't think I would enjoy working on this codebase.

Naming things is hard. Often when names are very long, they could be shortened, because they are in a function, which already narrows down the context and makes a shorter name still understandable. Very long names can also sometimes be a code smell, if they are relating to a lot of global state, which is not narrowed down in context by where it is defined.

Sometimes however, it is really difficult to come up with a shorter name. I think it is definitely a skill, that takes practice and never is really perfected.

Post reply on HN