I think the recent "Staff-plus" fascination comes from the extreme dilution these past years of the "Senior" engineering role. Meaningless title inflation is real.
Yup. When people are "senior" engineers with less than 5 years experience they need to have something to look toward.
I also need to be able to quickly communicate with recruiters and managers which roles I would be a good fit for.
My favorite is the kid on their first job out of college who after 3 years is now "Senior". Seen too many of these to be funny. I worry about hiring.
That was like the majority of my last company, ha.
To be fair, a kid after three years of high school is "senior". As is a kid after 3 years of college. Perhaps your word2vec("senior") is what needs recalibrating.
Not really, senior is meant to imply you are in the late stages of your career (or school or college or whatever) and have some wisdom to share. It’s reasonable to question if you can get that in a career - which could last 40 years! - when you are 3 years in.
This sounds a bit like King Canute saying the tide won't come in. Everywhere my peers are, senior just means a step up from plain engineer/developer & sits at roughly 5-10 years. The name doesn't have to mean anything, it could be interchangeable with the level numbers at larger companies - ask finance people what Vice President means.
Sure, some industries have really stupid conventions. But historically the IT industry doesn't hand out Senior or Lead titles until you attain actual Senior-level characteristics. I know people who've worked for 15 years and aren't Senior.
Time does not determine titles, skills do.
Exactly, and education. Someone who has a PhD and post doc work who is 5 years out of school is different than a BS with 5 years.
Some skills come with experience.
I was given the staff title at 8YOE at a startup because one of the less experienced engineers was given senior through title inflation before I was hired, so they felt I should be a tier above.