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Comment by mierz00 | Hacker News Reader

Is it really that weird?

In the military 6 years is definitely considered senior and I’m sure that’s also the case in a lot of other fields.

I know the EE & ME worlds, senior generally implies at least two decades of experience. I'm pretty sure the same is also true for civil engineering, and most of the other "hard" engineering practices.

It seems like (at least outside of the military) the duration to being senior and the importance of things not going wrong are correlated.

The meaning is different. In software industry, senior means "doesn't need handholding", not "super-super-long experience" as in other more traditional fields.

I expect more than that, a senior should be in the position of accomplishing a task based on a ruff abstract, they should also be able to mentor juniors and jump into meetings with the customer, supporting architects and sales, if needed.

My friend is in the military (information technology side). We are both 40-ish. I am only beginning to feel like a senior, and he has the option to retire.

I think a part of this issue is that there is nothing above senior.

Additionally, "seniority" is relative and can vary between different technologies: for example, I have been working as a software engineer for 25+ years, and while I have worked with Java before I am no better at it than someone who just graduated. Similarly, even though I spent nearly a decade as a frontend dev, the last time I did that professionally was in mid-aughts, and I have zero experience with React, TypeScript and other modern staples of that area.

> there is nothing above senior.

Only in industries where software development is not a primary business; beyond Senior there's titles like Lead, Staff, Principal, Distinguished and Fellow SWE, or branching off, things like architect.

Anyway, senior engineer is less about what languages do you know and more about making informed technology decisions, maintaining quality, managing and training less experienced people, etc. It's also - IMO - not down to years of experience, because you can have 25 years of experience but be stuck at a certain level or stuck in a certain technology.

"Lead, Staff, Principal..." exist only in few companies, are even more vague that "senior" and don't even represent seniority but rather how long a person worked in the same company.

(And how lucky they are at getting promoted withing that company)

> I have been working as a software engineer for 25+ years, and while I have worked with Java before I am no better at it than someone who just graduated

Don't see how that's possible. I wouldn't even think 50% of what makes anyone a good Java developer is due to anything Java-specific. And you'll undoubtedly pick up Java-specific knowledge faster than the graduate is likely to.

Sometimes I see the title "principal engineer" used, and my impression is that it trumps a mere senior. See [1] for an example.

I'm not in the US though and also work as a contractor so it's hard to use titles like these in my daily work.

[1]: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...

You, accidentally, tripped a pet peeve of mine. Many people seem to think of writing software as a command and control function like some hypothetical military rank (and the leveling process engaged in by tech. companies reinforces this) where people higher up the ladder “trump” those lower.

But in software (and perhaps all knowledge work) many many times its the lowest ladder employees who are closest to the actual problem space. They are the ones dealing with the hacked up code base from 8 years ago, the indecipherable comments, the untested code that is critical to the business.

The job of the more senior people is not to command and control those employees, but to empower them. Bringing breadth of experience, or in depth expertise that is not specific to the problem at hand to help them make a decision.

Sorry, rant over.

What do you think should happen if a more senior person brings their breadth of experience or expertise and the junior engineer disagrees and does something else?

Obviously depends on the situation but almost always the person closest to the specific problem should make the call.

That’s why one of the most important differences between a more senior engineer and a more junior one is the ability to mentor.

> nothing above senior.

Title inflation dictates that there is and inevitably will be.

If you’re senior after six years, and you’re staff after 12 then eventually people will be staff after 7 years and there will be a new title above that which takes 12 years to get (principle?).

I haven’t seen a junior in 10 years, I haven’t seen an intern in longer. People seem to come out of school into “mid” level roles - which means the mid levels are actually entry levels and the titles shift down.

Maybe on a "does it compile" and "does it work" level you might be the same as a fresh grad, but I'm sure you have years of experiences that help you make decisions and think of possible pitfalls. Plus each new language over the years is easier and easier to pick up.

> there is nothing above senior

Staff, senior staff, principle, distinguished, architect, etc?

In many hard sciences, 6 years is graduate school.

If you go to graduate school then your first job is ‘senior’ because by that point you’re a world-expert in your field.

And a PhD would be senior to a graduate?

Also the quote is 'professional', so although it's probably not the case, it doesn't preclude spending your 6 years in 'graduate school' beforehand anyway.

After PhD, people are forced to do postdocs, which are nominally junior positions.

But not compared to the new grad/undergraduate intern washing petri dishes or whatever. My point is that what you label 'junior' doesn't matter, it's all relative.

> After PhD, people are forced to do postdocs

You don’t have to do a postdoc.

In most engineering it takes 15 if not 20 years. Otherwise the term "senior" gets completely watered down.

Many software companies have official ranks where "senior" is a step up after "junior," to be followed by "principal," "senior principal," and/or "staff." "Staff engineer" may not sound as impressive as "senior" to a layperson, but at say Google those people are like minor deities.

"principal" and "staff" are even more vague than "senior" and exist only in few companies. More importantly, they almost never refer to total experience and instead refer to being promoted within a given company.

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