51–60 of 65 posts
Do we have thoughts on how important "senior"/"staff" is vs bullet points on resumes and the years of service?
As an engineer, I just want to get an idea of where this person is at in their learning journey and what their personality is like, do they have certain intangibles, etc.
The recruiter who screens the person before they ever talk to me, on the other hand...
> I started my first software job out of college in July of 2023. In January 2026, two and a half years later, I secured my second promotion, earning the title of Senior Software Engineer. > certainly there are hard lessons that I have yet to learn in my career - but my company does not hand that title out like candy > had (and still have) an excellent mentor he had just been promoted to Senior SE. He was two years o…
I will congratulate everyone on their first promotion, it is worth celebrating, not everyone can do this job. But this first promotion is given to everyone who can actually do the work.
Get someone good, in a greenfield project, the right start timing aligned with promo committee time, add in some luck, and sure two promos in two years are possible.
Seen this before and the worry is that they are learning is the game of the promos system, not engineering. I would have to sit them down and ask them how many years away from being the CEO do they think they are. The next promo will come slower no matter their skill and even slower after that and one day the promos will probably stop. The validation that they might be addicted to will get harder to obtain over time. Not getting a promos shouldn't "crush" you. If they assume that merit is always rewarded they should ask their boss how promo committees actually work. Many people don't get promos for reasons unrelated to merit.
The second question is where is the engineering? Only two years into a long career there is a lifetime to learn and explore. If they only chase promo they are going to burn out very quickly.
So many kids on hacker news - I’d say SWE is an experienced engineer not a senior developer- for Pete’s sake he graduated in 2023 that was 3 freaking years ago I’ve been developing production software for 20 years now - What other profession counts someone with 3 years of professional experience out of college as senior? Maybe competitive sports? Or academic math? If it means this kid is smart and good at coding sure…
I disagree and think the software model described works better when done well. I have seen this within a company, where both the hardware side and software side used the same titles (senior, staff, senior staff, principal). The hardware side used largely a combination of industry tenure and especially whether they had PHDs/patents/inventions or not to determine these titles, while the software org was very gung ho on…
Congratulations. It made me remember how proud I was when I became a Senior, and then earned my Super Engineer shortly after. Just recently I've earned my Extreme Engineer title. Good luck on your journey.
Who cares about titles? It's a really bad signal when a software developer cares about their title. All that matters is are you good at the work.
Humblebrag masquerading as self-reflection.
Oh man. That means I'm _so_ obsessed with my new title that I've gone meta and found a sneaky, disingenuous way to brag about it on HN. Thanks for pointing that out. I must have a serious personality disorder. I should probably see a shrink
> I started my first software job out of college in July of 2023. In January 2026, two and a half years later, I secured my second promotion, earning the title of Senior Software Engineer. > certainly there are hard lessons that I have yet to learn in my career - but my company does not hand that title out like candy > had (and still have) an excellent mentor he had just been promoted to Senior SE. He was two years o…
Some companies do it differently but honestly this is one of the more consistent ones I’ve seen based on years of reviewing resumes. I’d never penalize someone for not having a Senior title on their resume unless I knew the company’s leveling system.
I don’t take Senior Software Engineer to mean the person is a highly advanced engineer with loads of experience though.
Everyone who reviews applicants knows that leveling systems are very different depending on the company. What you should read these articles as is: The person managed to go through their first leveling up process at work. The title for the next level happens to be Senior Software Engineer at this company.
The title could have been Software Engineer II, Software Engineer Lebel Lvl 44, or anything arbitrary. The title is not the point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh man. That means I'm _so_ obsessed with my new title that I've gone meta and found a sneaky, disingenuous way to brag about it on HN. Thanks for pointing that out. I must have a serious personality disorder. I should probably see a shrink
You didn't need to say anything. Plenty of people would have stepped up to defend you. Now, the sarcasm looks defensive. This could be another blog post in a couple months.
Writing and sharing it is vulnerable, and it's always drove me crazy to see people treat those who choose to do that uncharitably. I try to check them when I can (on other people's posts). I should trust others in this context to do the same.
I should probably develop a thicker skin if I'm going to blog on the internet in 2026.
I left out a detail that might be relevant? Maybe not? I couldn't decide. SWE is actually a second career for me. I flunked out of college when I was 19, spent most of my 20s working as a chef, and then graduated college and started this job at 29. So I'm 31 now. So it's been funny to read things like "Congrats to this kid" haha.
If the post was about _how_ I got promoted that fast, I'm pretty sure this ^ would be the #1 reason. I'd already been programming for like 10 years when I started this job. People paid me (almost nothing) to write software that they still use today (much to my chagrin - it wasn't very good). So I felt like I had a "head start" compared to most of my intern cohort (though, to be clear, I still to this day feel very behind, in general).
Humblebrag masquerading as self-reflection.
Oh man. That means I'm _so_ obsessed with my new title that I've gone meta and found a sneaky, disingenuous way to brag about it on HN. Thanks for pointing that out. I must have a serious personality disorder. I should probably see a shrink