> A lot of 'senior dev' roles are much more about programming language trivia and much less about leadership.
I am curious - where do you work?
Asking so that I can potentially avoid that company, as this is the most inane and borderline backwards thing I've ever seen written about senior engineering.
Everyone above 30 is senior developer. When they all consider themselves leaders and try to lead simultaneously, it is pretty much political hell.
In some startups, everyone above 25 is senior developers. Everyone else is junior, there is no middle role. So it is not like companies had much choice how to label people.
Imo, most of what people write about "senior engineering" is what they personally admire in this or that senior, what they aspire to be or want others to be. It is not what actually role labeled "senior developer" is.
Indeed, levels are private at Apple. And so are the level requirements, probably to stop people thinking they'll get promoted by fulfilling them, when it's all made up anyway.
Poor take. There are plenty of good engineering organisations in Europe, just as there are more than enough terrible ones in the US.
That being said I agree I wouldn't want to work somewhere like what was described above. It's certainly not a style of interview I would approve of or conduct myself.
Not sure what the jab is about. OP works for a body shop in a governmental org, where does that let you imply that startup and eng are backwards as neither are OP's experiences?
If the anecdote is related to your experiences working on FB then, please, specify it, blanket statements aren't what I expect from HN comments.
I am curious - where do you work?
Asking so that I can potentially avoid that company, as this is the most inane and borderline backwards thing I've ever seen written about senior engineering.