Senior Engineers need more than just “8 years of experience”

I see this on a daily basis and have seen in at multiple companies:

"Non-Senior" engineers who have to pretty much mentor "Senior" engineers; the "Senior" being given the title due to X years of experience instead of actual knowledge and knowhow and of course the reverse where the "Non-Senior" does not get promoted because he does not have the required ~years of experience~.

I see it more rarely amongst higher job titles though. It's more difficult for a senior engineer to make it to lead or principal when they do not have the skills.

I used to wonder about this when I was younger. Now, older, I think the answer is that "senior" people are paid more, etc., because they can be trusted to generally tow the rope in the direction the company wants. They're usually not disruptive and usually do act professionally.

None of that has much to do with skill. As for skill, on average they're somewhat more skilled, but it's a smallish effect.

I do happen to be more technically skilled than most around me, but other skills matter more. I can avoid needlessly ruffling feathers. I can often foresee that a project will crash and burn months or years in advance. I can talk to people going through personal crises. This is all learned over long years.

Of course they do, they actually need senior knowledege. I've seen a lot of people who were given senior titles without the accompanying knowledege, its really polluted the talent pool.

Finding "senior" engineers who write forkbombs is more common than you'd think.

Hell, what I’ve seen is that you get called “senior” if you have more than three years of experience. Talk about mind boggling.

Those kinds of companies tend to be incapable of comprehending how to handle interviewing someone with 30 years of experience in the field.