Comment by johndoh42
2 months ago
Meanwhile the industry standard definition since the 80s:
- Junior - someone who can work under guidance.
- Regular - someone who can work alone.
- Senior - someone who can guide others.
2 months ago
Meanwhile the industry standard definition since the 80s:
- Junior - someone who can work under guidance.
- Regular - someone who can work alone.
- Senior - someone who can guide others.
I do wonder how seniors manage cultural / technical differences. If the junior is not responsive to guidance, advices, hints .. what else do you do
If juniors ignore guidance and advice, they stay in junior roles, handling simpler, less impactful tasks.
Everyone seeks career growth, but pushing for it too quickly often just leads to inflated titles without real substance.
It’s perfectly fine to remain a mid-level engineer for your entire career if it makes you happy; it’s solid, honest work that contributes meaningfully. Plenty of people in their 60s have held the same job for decades, and that’s okay; it can be a path to genuine satisfaction.
A junior or "mid" who doesn't take guidance repeatedly should likely be managed out.
It's perfectly fine remain "mid" (not junior IMHO) but is not ok to ignore guidance and advice from more experienced team members.
I don't want career growth, rather homeostasis. That is, growth that matches the rate of decay.
At most, maybe something like "tissue remodelling" to be lean, clean and flexible, so to speak, but not "big".
Some people that are immune to listen to people with more experience will continue to be ”junior” forever. They may eventually not have the title junior, but they really are.
> Everyone seeks career growth, but pushing for it too quickly often just leads to inflated titles without real substance.
That's why I'm not a big fan of recommending people to often and quickly change jobs to increase titles and pay. Their skills don't level up the same way, and they end up with a title of senior/lead developer and can't actually build maintainable systems or solve problems that nobody tells them the solution to.
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We have been here before. Same reason why CV driven development is a thing. When you look for a job, if you are a junior or a mid dev for too long, recruiters will think something is wrong with you. The idea of being happy remaining at your current level is anathema in an industry where chasing the next new thing whether it is a JS framework or a new title is an axiom.
And what if no junior under a certain senior ever makes it past junior?
Any mentor type figure is going to be at least partially evaluated by progress of the mentees against some benchmark.
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There's a difference between questions of cultural / technical difference and questions of competence or character.
In the end, if a junior is repeatedly not responding to appropriate guidance or advice, then that junior should be gone from that position. Same for a senior who is repeatedly dispensing inappropriate guidance or advice.
But it requires careful analysis of the situation before such a drastic course of action: is there a communication problem, a training problem, a mistake in evaluating abilities?
A senior should be able to navigate cultural and technical differences competently. A junior should understand that that the ones with responsibility for a project also have the authority to make decisions about the project, which should be honored.
talk to their manager. If their manager doesn't respond you go to your manager or the manager's manager.
The problem could also be with the senior.....
let them fail and see if they change affect
Yes but there is also a temporal component as well. A Senior should be able to do all their tasks and whatever else comes their way without needing guidance. To be able to do that requires a certain level of time in position.
nah, the tasks evolve as you get older. having a senior do all their tasks and whatever else without guidance sounds like free work. even the old people in the old folk's home get an assistant to help them take their pills!
That's a good functional definition. Verbs beat nouns for this kind of thing.