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Any article that splits people into two groups and says one group cannot inherently be good at something immediately puts me off, sorry.
I think a more realistic description is that everyone is a mapper. There isn’t a single body of knowledge that is “software engineering” - so it’s ok to encounter something new, “pack” it, then map it if it’s valuable.
Far better to encourage mapping than create false dichotomies that can easily work their way into cultural fit interviews.
“The candidate failed to find an obscure error in the JS console… clearly a packer - no hire”.
Wait till they end up as staff or principal. Along with bad management they hollow out several hundred person orgs.
all titles except for the ones indicating executive or direct reports are meaningless. It is a game, where workers strife to be granted higher and higher titles, just because their peers and the industry does. There is no inherit requirements, I can start a company today and call everyone super duper staff engineer
Write a skills matrix for an engineering team.
That gives you an insight about what the candidate thinks seniority is, and how they are spending their efforts to move their career forward.
This is what happens when anyone with a JS book and 6 months of time can call themselves an engineer.
A book would probably require enough self motivation that you might get a decent candidate.
These boot camps are churning out mediocre JS devs like they’re going out of style. Personally I won’t even look at the resume of a single one anymore. I’ve told our recruiter to not send me ANY resumes from boot campers.
Any article that splits people into two groups and says one group cannot inherently be good at something immediately puts me off, sorry.
In all the companies I work for in the last 20 years "senior engineer" effectively meant someone with about 5 years of experience. In general the bar is low, indeed, and the title tends to be quite aggrandizing. The title that shows seniority ("been there, done that"), again in my experience, is the next one, which usually is "principal engineer".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
would it change anything if they called themselves developers instead?
Yes. They could be "Senior Developers" in the same way "Paramedics" are not "Doctors'
This had zero impact on software developers careers or salary, except if you wish to work for the government.
In all the companies I work for in the last 20 years "senior engineer" effectively meant someone with about 5 years of experience. In general the bar is low, indeed, and the title tends to be quite aggrandizing. The title that shows seniority ("been there, done that"), again in my experience, is the next one, which usually is "principal engineer".
It’s a pointless challenge to try and bucket engineers by skill levels like that. Titles are for compensation and rank, and nothing more. A senior at my company would’ve been more like a staff engineer at my last spot. Every company is different and thats okay.