Out Of Scope - #8
Senior Title Inflation
Happy Sunday everyone! Hope everyone had an awesome week.
Getting a message that says “these changes reminded me of your TikTok” at work is never a good sign. I got that message from a coworker on Slack with a link to a diff. I looked at the changes and.. he was right. 😬
Inflation
Inflation is SO hot right now - so what about title inflation? There seems to be a ton of confusion/anger/various other emotions around the shorter tenure required these days to make senior and staff level roles at Bay Area HQ-ed companies. Unfortunately there’s also research that shows title inflation can actually discourage applicants, especially from underrepresented groups, from applying. My understanding is that years ago the “Senior” title usually meant 10+ years of experience. Over the past decade and especially during the Great Resignation, we’re seeing that title given to people who are traditionally “mid-level” of experience (between 4-10 years of experience). The same applies to “Staff” level roles being downshifted in years of experience required to what was the norm years ago.
This is not a brand new phenomena but why has this happened? I assume the shift has been happening partly because of the forever tightening job market and a gamble of giving a higher title as a way to attract talent. But my main guess is that people didn’t like to wait around 10 years to get their first real promotion. I think this all could have been solved by more quickly achievable levels in the IC track but I don’t think it’s something that can be easily “corrected” at this point. Just like normal inflation, a $5 tank of gas or 4YOE senior won’t sound so wild eventually.
ICYMI
This is kind of how all coding works except you’re losing the company’s money usually.
I sent this tweet to my entire team because we are drowning in Google docs right now. How are we organizing these things now?? Because having 23 open tabs of docs is not really working for me.
Work smarter not harder.
Hot tip: you can still say this even from WFH. 😌
That’s all folks! See ya’ll next week!
I think "you have done this for X years" is arbitrary measurement in many ways. Seniority of time does not mean seniority of skill. I absolutely think that there is nuance in total time served that absolutely has a value, but if you build a progression ladder that includes "you've held this role for X time" is actually really infuriating when in SaaS you're often wearing many hats, doing designated work/ taking responsibilities you're not being compensated for because it improves your experience. Where I am at, if you do the work and meet the requirements for a higher title for six months or more, you should be able to be promoted to that title.
I'd love to know how you might see this differently. This feels like a contentious thing I haven't been exposed to reasonable arguments on from the other perspective yet other than "serve your time, child".
Would the solution to this Senior inflation, be to have multiple levels? Junior -> Associate -> Engineer -> Senior -> Lead -> Principal etc? I guess it would make the Senior title more of upper-middle class title? We have just implemented this at my company. I have yet to see if it solves anything...