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Comment by danvasquez29 | Hacker News Reader

I think that that criteria heavily leans on an assumption of the quality of the other engineers on the team though. If there is a team composed of 4 engineers who are in the bottom 10% of performers in the company, it won't be hard for them to see a very mediocre engineer as a "senior" because that person does so much more than they can; yet to the other 89% of the company, it's absurd that that person would be considered a senior.

Granted, many would say it's equally absurd to have so many members of the bottom of your engineering talent on one team, but I've seen it happen over and over again in real life.

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"Carrying the team" certainly seems risky, and calls to mind the endless problems of Microsoft's stack ranking (especially the fights to get on a team with losers to "fund your raise").

I do think that the self-directed criterion is an excellent one, though. With that standard, you could promote an entire team if they're doing good work, or have non-senior engineers stretching up into your top decile. That makes the 'senior' title a clear assertion of "can handle these tasks without substantial oversight".

I think it's a mistake to think that developer ability is static, "quality" isn't a constant thing, by any means. Certainly we're supposed to keep learning and progressing. But there are plateaus. For example, I don't think myself or the person I championed for the raise/promotion were exceptional, it was simply a situation where what we were doing really "clicked" with both of us.

Later on, I had a member assigned to the team. They were going to fire this person, but asked me if he could have a chance on our team. I said sure. Turned out that this person needed a bit more guidance than they had received before, and when they got it, really began to shine. This person went from almost being fired to being a really valuable contributor on our team.

Myself, I left that company long ago, looking back I think it was a high point of my career. Never before or since have I had that level engagement with the domain or company.

But normalizing a developer's performance across an entire organization is no easy feat. If the subject is performing well enough under the role and team he was placed, then he probably deserves a promotion.

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