Hitting The Links

And further, from these, my son, be warned; the making of many books hath no end – Ecclesiastes 12:12

One could spend the entirety of their waking hours reading articles on software engineering. While I try to keep up the headlines, I aim to limit myself to 10-15 minutes a day. Anything more proves a burden.

Over the past couple weeks there’s been a few discussions I’ve found particularly helpful. The first, On Being A Senior Engineer, echoed thoughts I’ve had for some time. I do believe the title of “Senior” is handed out too quickly in many parts of the software development world. This probably makes me sound like an angry old man, but no one should be called senior until they have at least ten years under their belt, if not fifteen. To quote Andy Jassy, “there’s no compression algorithm for experience.”

I also appreciated the article’s emphasis on sponsorship. Being a senior engineer in my view has little to do with your technical breadth or depth. The step up to senior means that you’re now looking to expand your influence beyond what your own two hands create, whether that be being a team lead, one-on-one mentorship, or participation in the larger development community. Senior engineers recognize that building great software is a human activity, and develop their soft skills.

Finally, a crucial aspect of being a senior engineer is humility. I view this as a complement to what Larry Wall famously said, and not in contradiction. It takes maturity to know what you don’t know.