I find it funny that in software engineering you become a senior with just 6 years of work experience. Doesn’t anyone else find that funny? So, at age 29, you’re basically a master of your craft?
I'm reminded of Lincoln's "I can make a new general in three minutes": if you need to staff a hierarchy, and you have a bunch of young men to do it with (+), you take the ones that look like they have initiative and stick titles on them and let the results shake out.
I was also trying to remember which famous classical composer died young, and the answer turns out to be "most of them": https://www.classical-music.com/composers/composers-who-died...
(+) the industry has always been pretty terrible at hiring and promoting women, and the way we handle recognition is part of that
By highschool, you have as large of a gap in boys and girls enrolling in computer science AP classes and extracurriculars as it's going to get by adulthood. Additionally, in wealthier countries, with more gender equality, less women choose computer science degrees.
So no, it's not the fault of the industry. Man and women just have different interests for complicated reasons. You can verify it with your own two eyes - in any big corporation, (and in many smaller companies), there is a big drive to hire women, there are events exclusively for women, career groups, opportunities exclusively for women.
I wonder if, in a parallel universe, HR departments of schools are beating themselves up for not hiring enough men, college admissions departments are asking themselves if they're failing the boys of the current generation, or hospitals thinking if they should have a more inclusive culture in nursing.
Somehow I doubt it.
Haven't heard much of 'staff' and principle seems reserved for Fortune N types.
If you have 10 years of weak coding experience and have managed to finish a PhD, you'd probably start at least at a mid level, not junior, and quickly get up from that.
That's a "team lead" which is a particular skill of its own - I'm definitely a senior (age, experience, skills, breadth of knowledge, etc.) but absolutely not a "team lead" (or any kind of management) because that is a skill that eludes my brain.
The majority of software engineers don't dedicate themselves solely to practice and improvement of their skills so can't compete with somebody that does
Others will have a few years of experience and a "senior" title but may never obtain those traits.
The problem is those areas are often conflated under a single "senior" title at companies. But you definitely know who's going and who's staying when the layoffs come.
I mean they aren't wrong, after all a Fresh Grad gets $200K Total Comp from FANNG. That is nearly double ( adjusting for exchange rate ) the "Senior" software engineering roles in the blog post.
I would assume the title is based on merit and ability, not X number of years regardless of how good or not they are.