Ask HN: When and why did you start calling yourself a senior dev/SWE/etc.?
14 comments
Depends.
I'm officially a Senior at my current job (cost center non-tech company). I used to put Senior on my resume. I no longer do - I just put SWE.
"Senior SWE" is evaluated differently at different companies. I reckon a typical Senior at a FAANG or other mid to high level tech company is better skilled than a typical Senior at a non-tech company (including myself).
So if I throw in my hat for a position at a tech company as a Senior, then I'm going to be competing at a higher level. So I'd much rather just apply to a plain ol' SWE position (or even junior, if possible). The compensation is likely higher than what I currently make anyways.
I'm officially a Senior at my current job (cost center non-tech company). I used to put Senior on my resume. I no longer do - I just put SWE.
"Senior SWE" is evaluated differently at different companies. I reckon a typical Senior at a FAANG or other mid to high level tech company is better skilled than a typical Senior at a non-tech company (including myself).
So if I throw in my hat for a position at a tech company as a Senior, then I'm going to be competing at a higher level. So I'd much rather just apply to a plain ol' SWE position (or even junior, if possible). The compensation is likely higher than what I currently make anyways.
Well that's about as varied a pool of replies as I could want, given the question, so thanks!
- my official title includes it but I don't use it, to ease the competition
- use it when you're smart and fast enough to help & enable others (but you might be a lead engineer or manager at that point)
- let it be bestowed from without, and by the way it's dependent on the context (tends to mean more the bigger the company, and is usually stated in relation to others around you)
- several more saying let it be bestowed from without (including possibly by asking for it to be bestowed)
- I use it only to game clumsy recruiter searches
- I guess I'll add my own, which is kind of half-joking: Once you've got 5 years of experience you're "senior," and that's because, as Uncle Bob Martin pointed out recently, the number of devs in the world doubles about every 5 years. Which means if you've got 5 years of experience you're above the median; you're more experienced than half the people out there!
- my official title includes it but I don't use it, to ease the competition
- use it when you're smart and fast enough to help & enable others (but you might be a lead engineer or manager at that point)
- let it be bestowed from without, and by the way it's dependent on the context (tends to mean more the bigger the company, and is usually stated in relation to others around you)
- several more saying let it be bestowed from without (including possibly by asking for it to be bestowed)
- I use it only to game clumsy recruiter searches
- I guess I'll add my own, which is kind of half-joking: Once you've got 5 years of experience you're "senior," and that's because, as Uncle Bob Martin pointed out recently, the number of devs in the world doubles about every 5 years. Which means if you've got 5 years of experience you're above the median; you're more experienced than half the people out there!
For me it became a matter of helping people. When I was able to help other people with my knowledge and with the experience that I had, the title became basically a part of who I am. I think the best way to say it is that when you look at the way that people work when you have someone who is going above and beyond to help others you might consider them a lead engineer but that kind of implies other things such as some management duties means a lot more meetings, but to me the senior role is more about helping people make progress with their projects using
your technical expertise you have learned on the job. For me it came after 4 years of consecutive employment after school; when I was able to contribute to projects at a high level, complete my work on time and then have extra time to help others.
> I want to know what was the decision process at the moment when you first decided to start using the word "senior" on your own resume.
> ...they thought I should be using the S word!
The question suggests that you can somehow give yourself a new title which usually isn't true for people who work for someone else. Hopefully the titles that you put on your resume are your actual titles at the companies that you worked for, not something you came up with. Don't worry about calling yourself anything.
At the same time if you are able to get a promotion or apply for a senior role, that's great - go for it. It's nice that people around you are recognising your progress in some way.
Last thing, titles have meaning within any given company but are almost useless when comparing across companies. In some places to get a senior developer title, you just need to ask. Your manager then tells HR to change one cell in a spreadsheet and congrats - you're a senior software engineer. In other places you can become senior if you've been on a team for a year and everyone else has been there for a couple of months ("you have multiples of their experience, of course we can call you a senior engineer"). In those places you just need to be senior relative to the people around you. And in other companies it's a much more rigourous process with very specific criteria. There are people will decades of impressive high-profile engineering work at big companies whose title is just "Senior Software Engineer".
> ...they thought I should be using the S word!
The question suggests that you can somehow give yourself a new title which usually isn't true for people who work for someone else. Hopefully the titles that you put on your resume are your actual titles at the companies that you worked for, not something you came up with. Don't worry about calling yourself anything.
At the same time if you are able to get a promotion or apply for a senior role, that's great - go for it. It's nice that people around you are recognising your progress in some way.
Last thing, titles have meaning within any given company but are almost useless when comparing across companies. In some places to get a senior developer title, you just need to ask. Your manager then tells HR to change one cell in a spreadsheet and congrats - you're a senior software engineer. In other places you can become senior if you've been on a team for a year and everyone else has been there for a couple of months ("you have multiples of their experience, of course we can call you a senior engineer"). In those places you just need to be senior relative to the people around you. And in other companies it's a much more rigourous process with very specific criteria. There are people will decades of impressive high-profile engineering work at big companies whose title is just "Senior Software Engineer".
> The question suggests that you can somehow give yourself a new title which usually isn't true for people who work for someone else.
> In some places to get a senior developer title, you just need to ask. Your manager then tells HR to change one cell in a spreadsheet and congrats - you're a senior software engineer.
That's the "somehow". There is a very strong sense in which whole "asking your manager" thing is a mere formality—it's very unlikely to be declined if the title you're asking for is remotely appropriate (and, to be honest, often even if it isn't.) Your manager is going to be very happy that he or she has a way of keeping you happy and rewarding you for your work _without_ it coming out of their budget (the way a raise or a bonus would.)
So (at least in companies of a certain size, where this is more or less the level of formality attached to job titles), a title _is_ something you can decide to give yourself—yes, you'll want to run it by your manager to get them to ratify it for you, but that doesn't take much. Once you've decided that you want to be called by the new title, the rest is just paperwork to get it formalized.
> In some places to get a senior developer title, you just need to ask. Your manager then tells HR to change one cell in a spreadsheet and congrats - you're a senior software engineer.
That's the "somehow". There is a very strong sense in which whole "asking your manager" thing is a mere formality—it's very unlikely to be declined if the title you're asking for is remotely appropriate (and, to be honest, often even if it isn't.) Your manager is going to be very happy that he or she has a way of keeping you happy and rewarding you for your work _without_ it coming out of their budget (the way a raise or a bonus would.)
So (at least in companies of a certain size, where this is more or less the level of formality attached to job titles), a title _is_ something you can decide to give yourself—yes, you'll want to run it by your manager to get them to ratify it for you, but that doesn't take much. Once you've decided that you want to be called by the new title, the rest is just paperwork to get it formalized.
> There is a very strong sense in which whole "asking your manager" thing is a mere formality—it's very unlikely to be declined if the title you're asking for is remotely appropriate (and, to be honest, often even if it isn't.)
That's interesting, I really didn't think that it's that common. In many companies this ranges from very difficult to completely impossible and certainly isn't just a formality. I guess that we have just been exposed to very different types of company/management.
That's interesting, I really didn't think that it's that common. In many companies this ranges from very difficult to completely impossible and certainly isn't just a formality. I guess that we have just been exposed to very different types of company/management.
That's very likely true. The context I was talking about probably rounds to "companies with <100 employees", or perhaps at order of magnitude larger at most. I'd imagine that it's quite different in organizations bigger than that. (Not that it's _quite_ accurate to round attitude off to size, but it's probably close enough.)
I've never thought of "senior engineer" or "principal engineer" as something you are, like a title, but instead a part of the description of a role.
When I applied for a job with "Senior" in the title and got it.
I went to a company where everyone identified as a developer, senior developer or even principal developer. It seemed to make a massive deal to them not just in terms of pay but what they were willing to do and what they thought of each other.
Previously I'd always been either a developer or consultant, from entry level up to people who were architecting large systems costing millions of pounds with little outside support. I still think it's a bit weird as I don't really care what my job title is as long as I get well paid and get to do enjoyable work occasionally.
Previously I'd always been either a developer or consultant, from entry level up to people who were architecting large systems costing millions of pounds with little outside support. I still think it's a bit weird as I don't really care what my job title is as long as I get well paid and get to do enjoyable work occasionally.
Don't think it matters so much but when negotiating salary, abuse it!
One definition of seniority I use:
- requires a base level of knowledge. 5 years at least of development but less if you've done tons of side projects / overtime / etc
- You need to know how things work across the stack and be proficient in a few places. That's where the deep knowledge comes from
- be a leader when it comes to planning, as a senior you can reason about the project well and make longer term plans about it
One definition of seniority I use:
- requires a base level of knowledge. 5 years at least of development but less if you've done tons of side projects / overtime / etc
- You need to know how things work across the stack and be proficient in a few places. That's where the deep knowledge comes from
- be a leader when it comes to planning, as a senior you can reason about the project well and make longer term plans about it
I'll call myself that once I get the title/promotion. Or maybe if I were looking for employment. I've had people call me senior or be shocked when they hear I'm not. I've even had people call me tech lead the year I was an acting tech lead. Sadly they've officially left me at the mid-level title.
I don't general believe in these titles (senior, junior, etc.) but recruiters blindly filter for such words. So, I have always been a "senior" in my public profiles. On my CV I never used the word "senior" or "junior" once.
When my title included "senior" in it
My nose has been pressed to the grindstone forever, so it literally hadn't even occurred to me until today when someone came right out and said they thought I should be using the S word!