Received “Senior” role despite only having ~3YOE. How can I avoid disappointing?
Posted by its_me_klc@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 62 comments
I surprisingly received a “Senior” role from a FAANG adjacent company. What advice do you all have moving from my mid level role, to this senior role at a new company?
As an example, one thing I am worried is my current shallow knowledge base. At my current org, I feel like any time a PM / cross vertical ask my team’s seniors a question, they are immediately able to give an answer or point in the right direction.
For me, I feel like I almost always need to do some research before I am comfortable giving decent answers.
How can I improve on a skills like this quickly? I am happy to hear all advice on making this jump
GolangLinuxGuru1979@reddit
It’s just a title. And titles don’t really mean anything in tech. I’ve seen people be given senior titles and aren’t senior at all in terms of experience or responsibilities. I’ve been in roles that are “senior” but essentially have you doing mid level sort of work. So eh it’s just a title.
ninetofivedev@reddit
You don’t think about it too much because it means way less than you think it means.
Enjoy the pay raise. Keep asking your boss for actionable feedback in your 1:1s. That’s how you climb.
revrenlove@reddit
Just to reiterate for OP... actionable feedback
-_Champion_-@reddit
Just curious can you give me an example of actionable feedback?
Brahminmeat@reddit
If there’s nothing you can do to change it there’s no reason to bring it up
praenoto@reddit
ecethrowaway01@reddit
Some time ago, my intermediate promotion packet got denied - my manager noted that on one of my posts outlining future work, I didn't explicitly state a timeline for when it was being done, so he would think I would be immediately working on the stuff on the post.
The correction was to always list when I was doing work, and being very clear when there isn't a timeline
DarkGeomancer@reddit
Did your manager deny it, or did he cite it as a reason for its denial by his boss/upper management?
ecethrowaway01@reddit
My understanding is that my manager prepared poorly, but I'm past dwelling on it. Why?
dustyson123@reddit
I'll add that at a lot of these places, there's rampant title inflation and senior for 3yoe is standard.
Local-Day9584@reddit
I was offered a "senior" title at a place with 1YOE and declined the title. My reasoning was that my then current company only rose people to that level after like 8 years or they moved a mountain or something.
RogueHeroAkatsuki@reddit
Soon there will be need for more titles. Right know only we have ~~principal~~ ducal engineer title.
'royal engineer'
'imperial engineer'
'heavenly engineer'
Sounds good for me.
HarryTheGreyhound@reddit
There's five grades in my company: junior, normal, senior, principle, and senior principle. In fairness, it was created so the engineers with PhDs could get decent pay grades without being forced into management.
missing-comma@reddit
Do we unlock new costumes as we level up to those classes?
Flag_Red@reddit
Your beard gets longer and more unkept.
bazeloth@reddit
My boss is smart; he ask me to define my own goals and discuss it with him. How do i approach this? I've got 15 years of experience but im still 'medior' but i get paid well. Any advice? I just want the recognition
evil_twinkie@reddit
Consider something like Google's OKR. Set objective goals relative to your position and the company. For example I was in a research position and had a goal of producing at least two patent applications by end of year, something like that. They should be a mix of good for you (growth) and good for the business.
Salt_Pay_3821@reddit
It doesn’t matter because when you switch jobs they base it on YOE anyway
nonya102@reddit
The same thing happened to me.
I think it was because of my soft skills.
Be humble. Ask good questions.
Don’t use your lack of experience as an excuse for mistakes. Learn and move on.
cretnikg@reddit
Im interested in Interview process as Im also trying to transition into Senior role.
What technical questions were you asked?
HauntingAd5380@reddit
I got my first senior role a year into my career. Was back at junior by year 3 when I moved to a big company. These things are more about pay scale and lot of the time, so your work and do it well and no one will care.
nicolas_06@reddit
It is often fine to say you'll come back with a response to their question. If you actually follow up and the response are good quality people will be happy. Too often people respond immediately and respond something wrong or put the team into a corner (yes we can do it for next week while actually no). Also you wil learn much faster because you'll actually research it.
Elctsuptb@reddit
That won't work during in-person meetings like my company has
nicolas_06@reddit
The trick is to allow for deferred response when you are in a live discussion or in a meeting. It is the canonical use of that technique.
By saying explicitly that you will come back with a response to their question (potentially adding when they will get it: 1H, 1day, 1 week), you remove the need to respond instantly and remove the pressure.
You should take the point and provide the response in the predicted time.
Of course it doesn't allow you to not respond to thing you should have prepared or should know but it allow to defuse lot of instant questions so you have time to investigate.
It perfectly acceptable to need time and to research things. People will actually prefer that to many bullshit responses people give instead.
SanityAsymptote@reddit
Being aware that you don't know everything is absolutely a senior mindset. You're gonna be fine.
I will add that "Senior Software Developer/Engineer" is usually a terminal role at companies, so don't expect to be promoted.
I also got the senior title 3 years into my career, and it took me another 12 to get lead.
brettanomeister@reddit
Step 1: Deeply internalize (and regularly practice) the following:
There’s No Speed Limit The Grug Brained Developer Worse is Better Worse is Better is Worse Always do Extra
Step 2: Profit
polacy_do_pracy@reddit
I am in the same situation like you. I just think I should smile more and make managers happy with this decision
Phonomorgue@reddit
I was a senior at that point. Just document, document, document. Treat your code features like a product and express value.
bobsbitchtitz@reddit
I got that Senior title at 3 Yoe. I'll tell you i was no where close to where I am now technically
LoneDaffodil@reddit
Be enthusiastic and have initiative. If you don't know something, make an effort to learn either by yourself or with your colleagues. No shame in not knowing, the issue would be to do nothing because you don't know something. Recently I had a colleague hired with seniority, more years of experience than me, higher pay, and she would expect everyone to stop what they were doing to teach her everything. She would not volunteer to tasks because she did not know some stuff, but she would not ask to learn, her expectation was that we stopped to teach. Don't be this person.
will-code-for-money@reddit
I was also given senior after 2-3 years after I got a new job and at first I felt like I needed to act like a senior or what I thought a senior was in quickly learned I got the position because I fit the role just how I was currently. I stopped any pretending, or imposter syndrome stuff and was just me and one progressed well since then. Just keep learning, listening to others and you’ll be fine.
justaguy1020@reddit
Don’t overthink it sometimes they need to make you a certain level to get you into a certain pay band.
Packeselt@reddit
Good news! Senior just means 3yoe at some places. You still have principle, staff, etc etc above you.
All senior means sometimes is that you can be trusted to not break the codename or drop the prod dB. You know. Probably.
Jalexan@reddit
I’m on the precipice of senior > staff in my current role and everyone tells me I’m doing great but I’m also sure that one day they will have figured out that I’m actually a phony who knows nothing. Personally, I try to be as honest as I can about what I know/my limitations, and make sure if I tell someone I will do something by a time it is actually done. Hasn’t failed me yet, but I still don’t entirely feel like I have my shit together after more than a decade in. Just believe all the feedback you’re given and do your best!
_101010_@reddit
This happened to me. And then I made it to staff at FANG in under 5 YOE. Feel free to dm or ask here if you have exact questions. But best advice is just own it and learn from people at your role and higher
DadJokesAndGuitar@reddit
Buckle up! I made the same transition (being hired into senior instead of promoted) and I can tell you on a good team it’s a brutal jump.
It is worth it though, you will learn a lot. Just be prepared that this is the harder path to senior. You have to learn the new role and adjust to a new company and codebase. It’s much easier if you’ve been on the team awhile and have some existing knowledge to leverage.
revrenlove@reddit
A lot of that is domain/business knowledge and many months of hands on experience with that particular code base.
felixthecatmeow@reddit
Definitely. A mid-level eng with 3 YOE all on the same team will be able to answer these questions way easier than a senior/staff eng who's been at the company a few months.
richardtallent@reddit
I've been developing web apps since 1995, so I think Yoda Developer that makes me.
Guilty_Serve@reddit
Honestly man, why are you asking us? You got there by doing you. Now just continue that. I'll give you a hint though:
This is just a thing people say. It's not being cautious, it's evaluating how to give an answer. It took me a year to really be able to answer questions fast and effectively at the company I'm at, but I never told someone I knew something I didn't. I advocated for my time to get caught up and gave confidence in my ability to do so.
When I started I was told by a lead "You can grind to burnout and make it as a senior in a few years or you can take your time." I did the grind.
recursing_noether@reddit
Same thing happened to ne recently at 4 YOE and I feel the same way.
thereisnoaddres@reddit
Same, at 3.5 YoE.
MargretTatchersParty@reddit
You're upset over getting a senior role with 3YOE. Are you kidding me?!
3YOE is the most early (and it's far too early) you can get a senior role. Senior is more of an 5YOE+ type of a role.
TakeOutTacos@reddit
The post said that OP is nervous and afraid to let people down. I didn't get the impression whatsoever that they thought it took too long to get the role. It reads as the complete opposite
almost_a_hermit@reddit
One thing that helped me really build knowledge was to create the internal documentation and diagrams of features I worked on. I can give quick answers to questions because I am familiar with the codebase and wrote most of the internal documentation around it. Most of it is quick lookup (referencing the code or documentation) and not straight recall of the info.
Work on a convoluted part of the code? Make a diagram so next time it is easier to understand. People constantly asking you or your team about a certain feature? Write up a user guide that includes relevant feature toggles (and if they hot deploy), relevant observability (dashboards, traces, logs, alerts), and relevant functality.
Good luck!
WillyummF@reddit
Went through a similar transition. Your leadership believes in your ability to grow into that role or they wouldn’t have put you in that position. Don’t let imposter syndrome destroy you.
The other seniors you mention likely have had more time and practice to answer those questions and have likely been more involved than you had previously been. You will be that senior too.
You’re not expected to know all the answers in that level but you should be able to research and find them (which you do!). If you don’t know something, be honest and follow up when you find out.
Be curious, be enthusiastic, and be a great teammate and everything will work out. Don’t stress about it. You’ll be great
BiackPanda@reddit
Damn. I should have read your comment first. You said it much.better than I did
BiackPanda@reddit
OP It takes time to be up to speed on any role specially on large code bases. My only advice is that when you say that you don't know something, follow with "but I will have an answer to you soon". I think the fact that you are being proactive and looking for advice speaks loudly on your character. I think leadership knows you have potential and you deserve the role.
sobrietyincorporated@reddit
Companies use titles as currency. Do you read to much into it. Just do your best.
minty_taint@reddit
One thing many people haven’t mentioned is that Senior means completely different things at different companies.
I was in a similar boat, but was aware at my company Senior was mid level, with there only being one title below Senior.
Not that it’s easy to reach mid level, but just be aware that depending on the company we could be talking about an average YOE of 6 at company X vs. seniors elsewhere having average YOE of 15
prodsec@reddit
Tiles mean nothing
QuantumDreamer41@reddit
It all depends on your colleagues and management. One of my directors (skip level) said I don’t care that you have gaps, you have leadership skills, you work hard and you have the right attitude.
The next guy immediately wanted to get rid of me when he realized I didn’t have as much experience as other “seniors”. He told my boss I was over leveled. He was obsessed with everyone being as technical as possible in every discipline even managers had to be extremely technical.
I hope your company has a good culture of growing employees vs. layoff and hire the next one like my previous company
Careful_Ad_9077@reddit
Think of it as being senior adjacent.
Just do what you can.
Bootezz@reddit
This happened to me. But looking back on it 7 years later, yeah, I was doing Senior level work. Usually this means you’re self sufficient for the most part, able to learn quickly, and are constantly pushing the needle for the organization. You would be surprised how many senior level engineers aren’t able to keep a project moving in a direction. Just keep trying to push things forward and keep paying attention to what is important to the business and you’ll do fine.
idgaflolol@reddit
Titles mean different things at different companies.
Senior engineer roles at banks are called “VP of Software Engineering”. There’s thousands of VPs at these banks lol
xzlnvk@reddit
In that case VP is a finance term. Not really the same.
jpdstan@reddit
> For me, I feel like I almost always need to do some research before I am comfortable giving decent answers.
Who's to say your peers are not doing the same thing? :) Preparedness is a huge skill that I'd wish I learned earlier on. Save time to read documents/code beforehand (AI should make this way less tedious now), and focus on things you think other people care about (e.g. if there have been stability issues lately in your product, the convo will probably revolve around infrastructure).
Over time as you get more domain knowledge you won't need to prep as much and you can lean off of your experience. But even for those seniors, i'm sure it took a lot of hard work to get there
UnkleRinkus@reddit
You don't need to know the answer. You need to be able to find the answer.
Xaxathylox@reddit
Plan to disappoint yourself, but have a learning strategy in place to deal with the failures. Trust that process over the capricious nature of your KPIs. Its more important that you come out a stronger candidate for your next role than to have won 100% of your metrics.
RabidAddict@reddit
Senior doesn't mean having the knowledge and having all the answers. It means responsibility and trust. You can be the most senior technical role on a project and when stakeholders ask questions or have needs, you can be totally responsible for knowing when and how to research the answer, reach out to peers, handle cross functional team communication, call out risk and costs, mentor or delegate to juniors, etc.
AngusAlThor@reddit
The title means very little, you'll be doing the same shit. Just relax and enjoy the money.
Topikk@reddit
I was also given the Senior title around that point and also felt like an imposter. I worked hard and nobody cared that I didn’t know a lot. Focusing on being productive helps to naturally backfill the knowledge gaps.