Misaligned hierarchies

As a segue-way from yesterday’s post, we now find ourselves in an inflated hierarchy. What used to be a mid level, is now a Senior engineer. And a Senior is now pushed to Staff and Principal. Looking at this situation within a company, I don’t see much of an issue. An engineer can be a Mid / Senior / Staff according to their own engineering department’s yard stick. It’s their measure and if it works for them, great. The issue is noticeable when engineers decide to move to another company. A senior at company X, might not be one at company Y. In managerial roles things are also ambiguous. The expectations of an Engineering Manager in one company might be to manage a single squad. While in others two or three. Different levels of difficulty require distinct levels of skill and experience. This is one of the reasons why I take titles in CVs with a grain of salt. I much rather read what they achieved and evaluate them on that. And this brings us back to what I wrote yesterday. Senior engineers know how to write well. The younger me would scorn at these words, but good communication takes people further in their career than technical chops.