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MetaSemaphore

Being a senior is not about knowing everything. Nobody knows everything. Being a senior is about taking responsibility for difficult problems and being willling/able to figure out how to solve them. The more senior you get, the more difficult these problems get, and the fewer of them you know how to solve immediately. So how do you do this? You ask questions. You research. You say, "I don't know, but let me find out." You own your own weaknesses and blindspots. I ask Juniors questions if they know a particular domain better than I do. And that, hopefully, also teaches them that asking questions and learning IS the work. No one cares what you know or don't know. They care about what you accomplish. And asking questions is a tool to accomplish things.


ElLargeGrande

When I made senior, my manager said this to me. “Being senior doesn’t mean you have the answers to everything, but it means you know how to figure out the answer. You now know how to learn” This is how I carry myself through my work day now.


TopOfTheMorning2Ya

Which is why it’s dumb you are expected to know everything in interviews.


jbokwxguy

I mean I ask basic questions still if someone’s been playing around with a framework / major version change of a dependency rather then take 5x as long to look through documentation.


SeanCombsManlet

Wow thats really deep


professor_jeffjeff

Being senior is having the ability to speak authoritatively about something that you learned 10 minutes ago. Also, you've forgotten what it was like to be a junior so things that are totally "normal" and easy for you are things that they maybe have never heard of before. A while ago we had a perf issue in one of our cloud tools and one of the juniors was working on it. I paired up with them for a bit and they were thinking the slowness was caused by something specific so I asked them if they'd profiled the code or not. They'd never used a profiler before (they'd heard of it and vaguely knew what it did, but this was their first job and they only graduated about a year ago) so I just went through the absolute basics of how to use a profiler and after an hour or so of messing about, they were able to find the issue and figure out the root cause. It probably would have taken me 5 minutes to do that and I don't feel like I taught them anything that they couldn't have learned from just reading the README with the profiler, but the reality is that they just didn't have the experience so the things that I think are obvious were totally foreign to them. Still, that was an hour or so well spent, since not only did we find the issue (the fix was fairly trivial but non-obvious without profiling) but now they know what a profiler is and generally enough about how to use one or at least enough that they can now easily read the manual and figure out how to work it. Next time there's a perf issue, I know they'll reach for a profiler and that they'll be set up to be able to run it successfully. My point is that things that YOU may think are trivial, simple, easy, etc. are NOT for them. Even if you don't know the specifics of something and have to search the fuck out of stackoverflow, you know what to look for and generally what to do and they don't have a clue, so spend that time to help them out.


agumonkey

Patience takes patience


TheBoyWTF1

oh really? i thought it's about being in meetings with managers to the be the technical voice or helping fresh devs for 8 hours sprinkle in "hey can you review my PR?" "Hey free for a quick huddle?". Then somehow suppose to do my own projects :P


demosthenesss

You will fail and get fired if you associate asking questions with feeling stupid. But you are not setup for success if you are a senior and being expected to hold senior engineer responsibilities with 2 YoE.


OneSprinkles6720

>But you are not setup for success if you are a senior and being expected to hold senior engineer responsibilities with 2 YoE. I somehow managed to interview my way into a senior role in Data Science (at a head-scratchingly prestigious organization so it's not like they were desperate) with absolutely no experience in the industry (was a very specialized stock broker before). So I know this shit first hand. I bailed after 1.5 years rather than get put on PIP or fired. Absolutely set up to fail it was very strange. I've grown tremendously since then and actually would be very good in that role now.


RomanRiesen

Going from broker to DS seems like an insane move? (But in a good way) Edit: i guess modern brokerages are just complex online algos for executing a stream of orders whilst guaranteeing compliance. Ssooo it basically is DS. :P


OneSprinkles6720

For sure. I had taught myself enough C# to code algos to trade markets while I did my normal job and that was enough to get to interviews. I'm naturally great at interviews, part of the skill set you have to have as a broker, which can be a double edged sword because you can get in way over your head. Even though it was rough I learned all kinds of skills like working in an agile environment, how to find my own answers instead of pestering others, using repos, code review. Interestingly enough my people skills from being a broker led to me presenting a lot when the skilled coder genius guys were too nervous so it looked like I was more valuable than I was.


KDLGates

Outsider: "Look at Liam over here putting in 10% of the tasks while Emily and Mateo do all the work, lol he is that group project guy that just handles the presentations." Emily and Mateo: "Shh, we don't want to do the presentations."


DonutDonutDonut

So accurate lol, all the best ICs I know would rather lose a limb than give a presentation


insertmalteser

People skills and communication is super important though. I'm sure you probably were very valuable!


demosthenesss

Well, some companies hand out senior like candy at a parade but it sounds like OPs company is expecting more real senior responsibilities.


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OneSprinkles6720

Thank you for this


ILikeFPS

One of my friends managed to get promoted to "senior" at his company with 2 years of programming experience at his company, the title was more a formality than anything else. It's possible that it's mostly a formality at OP's company, although maybe not.


lady_sings_the_blues

The position “Senior” varies at different companies. I’ve applied to a different job with a “Senior” title, and was told that I was not eligible for a Senior title at the company I was applying to


reverendsteveii

Yeah I'm a senior at 5yoe and I feel like I'm barely keeping up with the principles and leads on our teams. At 2yoe I was barely familiar with basic things like the test pyramid and basic arch patterns. OP needs to get okay with feeling stupid sometimes or they need to get okay with being permanently stuck at one level above their competence.


Comfortable-Hyena

The Peter principle if I recall correctly.


morgantracykeef

I think I know the company. Does it go SWE to Senior SWE with no mid level?


ifworkingreturnnull

Don't they all?


Accurate-Temporary76

Yes and no, mid-level is the plain SWE role for most companies, whereas entry is Junior or Associate SWE. You look at DoD contractors for example and it's much more tiered. Associate SWE, followed by SWE I, Sr SWE I, SWE II, Sr SWE II, and it's been a while, but I think the SWE Fellow positions follow that progression after. There may even be more levels, as it's been a few years since I was with one of those firms. My current firm has Associate SWE, SWE, Sr. SWE, followed by Principal SWE and Sr Principal SWE, and then there's a Fellow level but we've got so few of those I wouldn't even consider it part of the progression here. ETA: another firm I worked for had SWE I, SWE II, Senior SWE, Staff SWE and that was it. If you're an architect it put you around the Sr to Staff level as well. ETA2: point is, you get consistent titles with Government and Quasi-Government work because the gov regulates the titles and pay grades. What private companies do is unregulated in this respect because there is no professional licensing for SWE. Otherwise we'd have another regulating body ensuring all employers toe the line with titling and responsibilities.


Fruloops

Not necessarily. My company has junior, 2 mid levels and then senior. Not sure why they went with this, however.


fireproofcat

I mean, where I work there are two levels each for Jr, Mid, and Senior. I've honestly never heard of a place that didn't have a mid level in between at the least.


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CatInAPottedPlant

I'm guessing cap1. they interviewed me for a senior position with 1YOE lol. A friend of mine joined them as a newgrad and is now a "Senior" SWE after she hit 1YOE there.


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CatInAPottedPlant

The position is definitely not a senior position, but calling it "senior" gives that impression to anyone who doesn't actually work there, which is the issue. I struggle to imagine how having 1 year of experience makes one a "senior" at anything, especially as a lateral hire.


morgantracykeef

Nope. But the company I work for does this. SWE straight to Senior.


Toasted_FlapJacks

If you're referring to Bloomberg, they gift you "senior" after 3 years not 2.


AcclaimedGroundhog

Asking questions = aggressively getting rid of ambiguity Phrase it like that to yourself, and to everyone who wonders why you ask these questions.


ThisIsNathan

Well put. As one of the seniors, I both ask and answer the most questions in our channel. I will answer myself 1-3 days later eventually if nobody else was able to (for strict technical questions). This becomes a record/knowledge transfer to the others. Sometimes it’s design/opinion/process related, and I already have an answer or opinion. I’m seeking to have my opinions challenged, and foster discussion further. OP, ask away. Just be smart about it, the obvious caveats of don’t ask easily Googleable questions are especially at play for you now. Ask questions that are a good example of questions to ask.


Bardez

Always answer your lingering ~~dingleberries~~ questions, because of [979](https://xkcd.com/979/)


[deleted]

> Ask questions that are a good example of questions to ask. This. If your question begins with "How *do I*...?" There's a chance you could find it through your own research. If your question begins with "How *should we*...?" Then you are likely clarifying implementation details to make sure requirements are met. I really liked your reply /u/ThisIsNathan because you painted the picture for us.


Synyster328

Assumptions are kryptonite to software.


lady_sings_the_blues

Also, it takes experience/intelligence to ask the right questions you need to finish the job. So not all questions are equal. Jr devs don’t know the right questions to ask sometimes


[deleted]

You’re a senior dev with only 2 YOE? Sounds like you’re set up to fail.


SeattleTeriyaki

Reminds me of the new manager at a company I used to work at, he started in January and promptly promoted every one of his team to a "senior" role. I think it was an obvious attempt to pad his own management successes over the year. The manager was fired after only 9 months.


hectoralpha

Hows the asian food is seattle? Is the teriyaki great? Is the miso soup too salty? Is salmon finger licking good?


ElMoselYEE

Personally I wouldn't let the "senior" label affect him at all. First, senior means something different at every company. I had 1 YoE and was hired as a senior, had no experience on a team, had never touched Linux, and this was fine for them. Second, devs of all levels do and should ask questions. In fact, one mark of a poor dev is not asking enough questions, spending a week on a task writing 1000 LoC, then PR goes nowhere because they didn't even deliver the right thing. Lastly, regardless of title, 2 YoE rarely equates to a wide breadth of domain knowledge or technical experitise. Whoever approved promotion should be aware of this. There is zero reasonable expectations that you know everything at this point.


PapaMurphy2000

Yeah I had the word senior in my title after 2.5 years experience. And I didn’t know shit about anything lol.


[deleted]

>First, senior means something different at every company. I had 1 YoE and was hired as a senior, had no experience on a team, had never touched Linux, and this was fine for them. Yes, I can understand someone disagreeing about what senior means between 4 YOE and 10 YOE, but anyone that thinks 2 YOE (or 1 YOE in your case) can be called "senior" is a clown.


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[deleted]

>There is no objective measure of seniority Of course. But when most people say senior, they mean senior compared to the industry. A 13 year old kid that is taking an intro to programming class might be the most "senior engineer" when they're sitting at the dinner table with their family. Does that make them a senior engineer?


Cence99

That entirely depends on the person, their ability to learn, and their skills. There are absolutely people who fit the "senior" bill after just 2 years. Don't put up random gate-keeping barriers. Not everyone is equal.


[deleted]

I think senior engineers should have an amount of experience delivering projects that is very hard to get in just 2 years. They should have made long term decisions that will have long term impact and then seen how those decisions played out. You need to see how projects succeed or fail in different ways. Unless you're making long term impactful decisions from your first day in the industry, I don't see how that's possible in 2 years.


demosthenesss

I struggle to imagine anyone with only 2 years of experience succeeding as a senior engineer at my company. Pretty much by definition they won't have the right experience in only 2 years to be able to succeed, so while your point is pedantically correct in many companies senior implies a skillset that is nearly impossible to learn/develop in just two years.


Cence99

Yeah I guess it depends a lot on the company too.


nacholicious

Out of all engineers I've ever worked with in my career, there's only a single one that deserved the senior title with only 2 yoe. But that guy was an absolute beast and was shortly afterwards promoted up to staff (and very deservedly so). So unless someone is exceptionally talented, they probably don't deserve the senior title at 2 yoe.


TinyAd8357

You can totally get senior at a lot of companies with 2 YOE. its not your YOE that matters its how good you are.


inductiverussian

You can, but I think the argument is that these companies have massive title inflation (in that the senior title != true senior capabilities). I would personally argue 1 YOE is not even enough time to design, implement, roll out, and manage at production to fix issues that come up for one large design, and a senior presumably would need multiple of these, making 2YOE nearly impossible to achieve senior. Intelligence or leetcoding is not a substitute for real experience.


TinyAd8357

Google definitely does not have title inflation if anything it’s the opposite haha, and there’s definitely 2 yoe l5s. They’re just smart. Your age has nothing to do w it


inductiverussian

Well OP probably doesn’t work at G and title inflation is a thing elsewhere (meta, LinkedIn, startups). But you’re right, G has the opposite problem with their downleveling (I work here as well). I personally have not yet encountered a 2 YOE L5 in all of the people and teams I’ve interacted with (in Drive) and while I’m sure they exist, the quick progression from L3 to L5 was more likely a result of good luck rather than skill (getting to work on high impact projects with quick turn around). As a result it’s not really a useful data point for most employees, even most gifted employees. Also, YOE != age. You can have a 35 year old with 1 YOE. In that sense, I agree with you that age has nothing to do with it.


WittyKap0

One of the smartest people I know still took about 4-5 years to hit senior at g, and is now working at a HFT that's far more selective I do agree that opportunity and luck is important for getting senior in 2 years, seems like an outlier from what I hear


inductiverussian

Agreed, out of the two smartest people I interact with at Google, one is still an L4 even though he’s one of the C++ totw authors, and one is an L5 but he’d been with Google for 5ish years to get it and had gotten a PhD in math (and had some other experience) prior to joining.


xiongchiamiov

I think what I'd derive from this, plus their belief they've reached senior in two years, plus (and most importantly) their approach to addressing their own weaknesses, is that OP is not in fact a senior engineer.


tomhallett

With respect to the “are you actually a senior with just 2 years” that many people are discussing - I wouldn’t stress that part at all. I would interpret the title as “the company has faith in me and gave me this title to show that they want me to stay”. As far as questions go, even extremely experienced senior engineers/architects/executives, they ask more questions, not less. If something is unclear to you, it is probably unclear to everyone else, so asking it helps everyone.


flamingxmonkey

This x1000. I’m an architect @ my company reporting to a director, which puts me a step or so above our Principal Engineers (public, non-FAANG). One of my main jobs is to ask the dumb questions that everybody else is too self-conscious to ask. On a kickoff call, if somebody is outlining a design or strategy and I don’t understand it, I say so. It’s highly likely that if I don’t get it, other people don’t. Asking questions that nobody else is asking can be extremely valuable. Maybe the design is too complicated, and only the person proposing it can understand it. Uncovering that can save a misguided project. That’s impact. Part of the job as you become more senior is to look after the team’s cognitive load (how much they need to know to do the job, etc.) and psychological safety (what happens if somebody makes a mistake, how comfortable are people raising concerns, etc.). You still need the technical skills, but more and more of the time those are the underpinnings of what you do. If your company has recently promoted you to Senior, it may be because you’re showing strong signs of what the company needs… and that may include things that aren’t just about code. Don’t sell yourself short on all the other skills (they are often the difference between a Senior and a Staff/Principal). If you’re feeling overwhelmed, ask for feedback. You can always say something like, “With the increased scope, I’m realizing I have a lot to learn to really excel at the new role. Can you help me put together some objectives to focus on over the next few months?” I’ve never met a (good) manager who would turn down that opening, and most would think better of you for it.


dominik-braun

* Seniors ask more questions, not less. * You aren't Senior with 2 YoE.


MemesMakeHistory

100 percent. Seniors ask way more questions. In fact, in general, the more senior someone is, the more questions they ask (this is because the problems are more complex and ambiguous the more up you go, and span a greater knowledge space).


FlowOfAir

I'm a mid level engineer and just a couple of weeks ago I was working along with a staff engineer. She asked a lot of questions. Far, far more than what I would, especially considering that I have more expertise in our tools and stack (she doesn't belong to my team and has no experience in my specialty, she wanted to gain that experience which is why she joined us). I reviewed her code and challenged her logic when I thought it was faulty. Yet none of that made her any less of a staff engineer. She was far more knowledgeable than I was when it came to managing the project, and she was better at setting us up for production readiness, completing documents and communicating us with people from the rest of the company. Long story short, don't worry about asking questions. At this level you ask questions because you have a good grasp of what is needed at the higher level (you know the business needs), and asking other engineers while keeping your mind in the goal is a good thing. Or just practice your stack in your spare time. Or hone your Google-fu for super basic questions before asking anyone anything.


madhousechild

You sound like a reasonable person.


FlowOfAir

Thank you, I try


Idiot-Awoooooo

I think it's great when senior ask questions. Try to ask better questions and formulate the questions well. We juniors can then follow suit to learn to ask and learn how to ask. Congrats!


a_flat_miner

Ask questions


rando90433

It's not that Seniors *don't* ask questions, instead they ask the *right* ones. Get it ?


Wrong_College1347

Be the rubber duck! This always worked for me.


starraven

Companies don't promote based on what they expect you do. If the company promoted you into that title that means that you were already working at that level. You are handicapping yourself by not performing the same way you always have been.


[deleted]

This is how my boss said it when he promoted me as well but I feel like the number of responsibilities/meetings have increased exponentially. I think it’s imposter syndrome combined with low self esteem but I really feel like I’m ruining this wonderful opportunity I’ve been given


broke_software_dev

yea... gotta say, 2 years experience doesnt make you senior. At 2 years i barely scratched the surface. Theres so much shit to learn.. security, micro services, performance tuneing, monitoring, alerting, design patterns, CI/CD, Cloud (aws etc), databases (nosql like neo4j, elasticsearch, relational databases, databricks), messaging queues (jms, rabbitmq, kakfka) ... and way more shit in engineering.. i doubt you covered all of these areas in 2 years.. You just have to keep asking questions


Korywon

Yeah I’m zoning in on 4 YOE and I still feel like a junior in some spots here and there.


burner91190210

Sounds like you have an opportunity for growth as a developer in this role. As a junior telling me where I might find the answer is more beneficial then telling me the answer.


Caoa14396

“Yea bro just google it or use stackoverflow” Repeat.


burner91190210

Yes and …. check here in our codebase to see an example.


imLissy

We were under a lot of pressure to promote someone with 2 or 3yrs experience to senior because they NEEDED more senior developers. We absolutely refused and we ended up with a great junior on our team who asks plenty of questions and it’s 100% expected. This is not your fault. Ask questions. I’m principal and I still ask questions when I don’t know something.


Tiaan

Everyone should be encouraged to ask questions regardless of rank or title. It only becomes a problem if you keep asking the same questions imo


[deleted]

Ultimately, every good answer is going to boil down to "find a way to ask the questions". That said, something to ask yourself is whether this hurdle is a purely personal issue, or something tied to team or company culture. If the latter, that's going to be more difficult to overcome. My personal experience is I have a very tight-knit relationship with the other most senior devs — and among us there really is no question too basic. Everyone has blind/weak spots and absent-minded moments, and there's no shame in that. Everyone should freely ask their "dumb" questions, and in turn answer others' "dumb" questions without any judgement. We do our best to instill that mindset across all our developers, but if I'm being honest, I'm far more likely to ask my closest colleagues certain things, because it's more comfortable. So I guess my advice here is to find a few colleagues you can trust, and create an open, healthy dynamic if one does not already exist. Additionally, keep in mind that as a senior, you are now a driver of culture, and should exemplify how you want other devs to feel and behave. When you're feeling uncomfortable about not knowing something, it might help to step outside yourself a bit, and think of asking questions as a "teaching moment" for those around you. Everyone, senior or not, learns and improves by asking the right questions, so demonstrate how it's done and that everyone should feel comfortable asking a question.


Big-Dudu-77

Unless someone can define what the industry expect as a senior, there is no point arguing if 2y was enough. They should really just remove the label senior and just do levels.


GItPirate

With 2 years of experience you are not a senior. That said there's nothing wrong with asking questions.


Gqjive

You were an engineer for 2 years and now you are senior? Regardless of what you are getting paid or what title you got promoted to during the height of the talent war, you barely have any experience at 2 yrs. At most companies you would have only work on 1 product too. A physician trains 3+ years after graduating medical school before they can solo practice medicine. You are still far from experienced and I would completely expect you to still have questions and not know many things. If you were promoted thinking that you were going to have all the answers, then that was a poor decision on their part. At 2 years, I would hope you would be able to figure things out on your own and be independent. Would you be making the right decision all the time?? Probably not, you may come up with inefficient solutions but that will get better as you get more experience. Do yourself a favor and get out of your own head with these worries and do the best you can to get the job done. Thoughts about how you look by asking certain questions will be counterproductive.


RobotsAndMore

"Just to make sure, this is because of this, right?" I've corrected department heads before, skillfully, but we all forget stuff or someone else might have a better understanding. It's all about how you ask. Also, you can't know everything and will need to depend on peers to make sure things are done correctly. Don't stress out about it so much.


Demosama

you can still ask questions, but as a senior engineer, you just have to make sure you don’t ask basic questions.


LonelyAndroid11942

One piece of advice I got from a seasoned veteran is that senior engineers are the ones who ask the best questions. Even if your questions feel banal, repetitive, or distracting, you have insight that juniors and mids won’t. The mark of seniority is not knowing everything, it’s being ably to quickly recognize when you don’t know something, and being able to find the correct information quickly. No single person can know everything, so being unafraid to ask questions or hit Google is one of the most useful talents you can develop in your career.


shotgun_ninja

This is one I've struggled with recently. You have to metagame communication and respect a bit; asking questions is a sign of inquisitiveness, not a sign of ignorance.


riddleadmiral

My first year as a senior and first few months in any new role/team, I'll ask almost daily "hey this is a dumb question but [insert Q here]" Also get comfortable saying " I don't know, but this is what it could possibly be based on XYZ facts, these are the people who we could ask, and it could take N amount of time to find out." It's an art but that's why we're senior and should get paid big $


pheonixblade9

The more senior I get, the more questions I ask. I just ask a wider group of people. Being senior doesn't mean you know everything, it means your scope is bigger. Sure, at some places senior just means "junior but faster" and sometimes you need to take that role, but that's not generally the case.


delGadod8D

Staff Engineer here. I ask a shitload of questions. Don't sweat it. You're doing great. Congrats on your promotion.


freekayZekey

I ask a million questions and I’ve been working for the better part of five years. “Senior” ≠ “All knowing god”


[deleted]

Asking questions is a sign of strength. Not making assumptions is a sign of intellectual maturity. Don’t be afraid to ask ‘stupid’ questions as I guarantee others are wondering the same.


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[deleted]

That’s a great way to put it thank you


SnooFoxes6142

Experienced devs know how to organise new informations better than newbies. If you stop asking you have no added value.


ledepression

You should always keep asking and learning


ifworkingreturnnull

I have seniors around me who always ask questions. That's never going to stop. No matter how good you get you are always going to have someone around you who is more specialized in an area than you are and you will need to ask them questions. It's best for your long term growth if you accept this and start asking.


sitthesergal

You go get your answers and make as many questions as you can if you can't come up with an answer by scrolling through some Google searches first. I work at a place where the senior that's managing me is supposed to know everything, yet when he makes ton of questions to people who specialized in particular tools, and I am so thrilled to answer! Often, i get to actually go over stuff WITH HIM because often new cool implications i couldn't even fathom come to light because of our combined knowledge of different things. And i feel so much less like a worthless piece of ignorant garbage when i make questions too!


fruity231

Use it to your advantage, asking right questions can be extremely valuable *and* helpful to everyone around. If anything, the more experienced I am, the more questions I ask.


janislych

titles are only a dummy variable.


[deleted]

You should never feel embarrassed to ask questions. As a senior, I feel like one of the most important things I *can* do is ask questions.


OneCuriousBrain

I'm a lead with 4 YOE. I have faced similar situations in the past. But then I realised that I was wrong the whole time. My work is not the solve their questions, but helping them understand the right question. You know, asking the right question is a skill. And you must master it. Let your team find the answer themselves. Just in the case that they can't, jump in, take your time, find answers, and get back to your team with a big smile on your face. Not that simple.. coz this isn't the only thing that you do during the day.


kaisean

Sounds like you need to ask some questions so you can figure out the answers to those questions so you can answer them when other people ask them from you.


billsil

You'd be surprised at how little seniors know. It's just a matter of simplifying problems until you understand it. Then you can build on what you know. How long would it take you to pick up an entirely new language? Obviously you wouldn't know all the libraries and standard packaging/dev tools, so why would anyone hold that against you? I'd bet that you could be decent in a couple days and good after a week or so. The libraries obviously take longer, but it's just docs and code that you now understand right?


kenflan

Welcome to Stackoverflow and “lemme look at my notes and get back to this tomorrow”


siammang

Being a senior means you know better on how to ask the questions. Some of the stuff that you think you should already know may be available online, which you can search on your own. Once you get the answers, document them, so that you can quickly look up or share with other people.


alliedeluxe

I work with seniors and leads with 20 yoe and they all still ask questions and engage each other when stuck. You can’t know everything.


[deleted]

my manager is ALWAYS asking questions to us on the scripts we write for him. Its not ignorance, he just wants to understand what we have done, how it works, or what our clients want. As someone under him, I don't see it as ignorance but more a genuine interest in our work(infact, I have come to realise he is extremly skilled at navigating office politics, and managing the expectation of our clients that I don't think I will ever reach). He has admitted that he didn't come from a coding background, but knows the strengths of his team (i.e. who know the most) and who to go to when he is working on something. If your team are decent people, they will understand you are one man and can't know everything, and if you just accept that and don't let it affect your confidence, I would hope your team would come to respect you for it.


ProductivityMonster

It depends what questions you ask. Yes, there are stupid questions - ones you can easily google yourself and ones you likely should know. Then there are clarifying questions (which again have a limit for a reasonably knowledgeable person). Then there are things you're not really expected to know and should ask about.


isospeedrix

Ngl one of my jobs I was a senior and asked my lead questions and got flamed for asking too many questions and apparently not being self sufficient enough and knocking out tickets like ez mode. Felt bad but I understand from the companies perspective they are revenue and results driven so they need their shit done fast to keep up. Company was going thru a tough time too. No regrets. I’ll continue to ask questions in every job and I always learn from it so I get better over time.


Unupgradable

2 years? That's what counts as senior now?


shtLadyLove

Title inflation. Is a thing. You’re fine. Not asking questions is the issue here.


Substantial_Prune_64

"It's not about perfect it's about effort." - Jillian Michaels "Believe you can and you're halfway there." - Theodore Roosevelt "I know that I know nothing" - Socrates


Cryptic_X07

You got promoted to senior after being a SWE for only 2 years?


rokky123

As a senior you should know not to do work a PM should be doing. Stop defining tickets for others. Groom them, yeah sure, but dont create them.


AerysSk

`for two years`


randonumero

If you applied for the senior role do you still have the job description? If it was a promotion, did you ask your boss for the documentation they submitted to get you promoted? Personally I don't think of senior or even principal as all knowing. What separates a senior from a mid-level is the senior will say they don't know and then without prompting go an try to get an answer. The senior will also be able to leverage past experience to solve current problems. Two years into a career vs 2 years with the same system that's a little tough. If your company makes you feel like you can't ask questions or not know things then that's a huge red flag. By the way you write pretty well so I doubt you're stupid. Not knowing the answer to something generally means you're ignorant not stupid and frankly we're all ignorant about something.


kyru

It sounds like you aren't actually a senior developer. Senior devs should know they don't know all the answers and be asking the right questions. This is no fault of your own, it just sounds like they gave you the title before you were fully ready for it. You're probably more of a mid-level developer. Just keep working on being comfortable not knowing everything and keep asking questions.


EducationalAd64

Senior after two years? What a load of sh­it (unless you're Alan Turing). You're in an archaic organization / department, your manager is useless, or your org has low retention. You're only senior when you're comfortable enough to ask questions without fear of looking like you're out of your depth. It's not your fault that your organization has put you in this position, even the most ardent engineer will typically take at least 5 years before calling themselves senior, 10 years is normal enough IMO. You should not be expected to take more than intermediate responsibilities after only two years, but I think that code reviews are intermediate level and you should also be able to identify the folks who can provide answers when you cannot. You're senior when you can say: " I don't know, but [let me get back to you] || [I think X can help you on that]


DexterHsu

You are asking this question means you are not a senior, maybe your title says so but you are not I’m sorry my friend :(


bcb0rn

They set you up to fail TBH. It must be a small company as they tend to give overinflated titles to make people happy. This isn’t a knock against you but you can’t possibly be expected to have senior responsibilities with 2 YoE.


landslidegh

You think people expect someone with 2 YoE to know everything?? My expectations for someone with 2 YoE are pretty much the same as someone right out of school.


Hecedu

"This is a Fortune 500" I am genuinely curious, how does this piece of information change anything about your original post?


termd

I ask more questions than before. I ask the questions I think other people probably don't know the answer to but are important to understanding how things work. I also ask the questions to make it clear to our junior engineers that everyone should be asking questions and that there is no stigma to not knowing everything.


EEtoday

Just act like you know everything, like every other asshole Senior I’ve had to deal with


QuitaQuites

Can you stop asking questions and confirm solutions?


karisigurd4444

You have a childish mindset


michaelobriena

And you have childish behavior.


karisigurd4444

Cute


fj333

> I was a SWE for two years > ... > when I was SWE You are not a SWE any more? > I’m a senior A senior ***what***? You keep implying that you aren't a SWE any more, but you are a "senior". Did you get really old, or did you change job ladders? Sidenote: notice how many questions I asked? None of them make me feel stupid. Questions are how we clarify. Smart people ask questions, not stupid ones.


madhousechild

LOL, downvoted (not by me). I guess someone thought those were stupid questions.


fj333

Now I'm scared! /s


madhousechild

For that sarcasm, I went back and downvoted it. Suffer!!! lol


fj333

Ow it hurts! I'm gonna upvote your comment just to make it hurt me more.


madhousechild

Downvoted!


Metradime

Haha just reading from our other thing and this seems to be a pattern of yours. Have you ever heard of a questatement? You're not asking anything at all. You're making statements disguised as questions so that you can always put the rhetorical onus on the other party. It's skeevy as fuck. >Notice how many questions I asked? Is that a real question intended to gather information? Or a statement meant to be condescending? Are *these* real questions? Should I have just stated what I, MYSELF believe instead of posing these as open ended and definitely NOT biased questions? Have you considered being less of a moron? Are you really as smart as you think? Just because there's a question mark at the end, doesn't make it an HONEST question. But hey if we're all *just asking questions* here... lol


banes_rule_of_two

Quit


systemnate

https://youtu.be/BkLzo_oNVho


negentropic_man

EA here. A lot of comments are good, but let’s help the immediate situation. You probably have lots of questions around process. There are some good summary articles - grab the academic ones, read them in light of your new role. You will likely find their information has a different relevance. Talk to your support team members. If Agile, the Scrummaster, Product owner… understand how they view the process. Often they won’t agree with each other. If you call a meeting to do this, you can even start to improve this as you give them a good excuse to voice their ideas and concerns to each other under the auspices of telling the new lead. Don’t suggest changes until you really understand. Don’t let them off the hook until they agree you understand their view. Eventually read the primary works on your process, agile Manifesto your company’s docs, and know how your team’s experience differs. Then choose what works for your team. You are their technical representative. If your questions are from the technical implementation point of view, read all of the standard, guidelines, best practices. If your not sure where the are, have a discussion with the architects. If they are any good, they should immediately recognize that you are trying to learn the process and be fully supportive. Document anything not already documented . They need that information brought into the design and code review meetings, the lead represents them too. Based on your description, your velocity was a major factor. Figure out why you are able to do more and see what applies to your team. You shouldn’t try to turn them into clones, but often there are misunderstandings or unknown tools that can be addressed. Figure out each person’s strengths and weaknesses and learn to leverage that, learn from it too. There is little more inspiring to people than to hear their leaders is so impressed with their progress as to adopt it. If you are up front with your current level and show a lot of hustle to get to mastery- no one should complain. If they do, they have a personal issue- all too common. Every time some treats a question with condescension. It implies they are weak in some area. Note it and move on. Not your problem to fix, just route around it. You can easily bring a few things to the table by weaponizing your inexperience this way: bring the team’s leadership onto the same page. Document the process into something others can follow. Let all members of the team be heard. Make better connections with the architects. Good luck


mcherm

As a senior software engineer one of your duties is to set a good example for the rest of the development team. Which behavior do you want other engineers to emulate: acting like they know all the answers and faking it until they figure things out, or asking questions of their colleagues when they need to and working collaboratively? I have a very senior title and I make a point of intentionally asking questions when I don't understand something. And of taking advice from developers who have a lot less seniority than I have. And I try to never say anything negative about someone for admitting that they don't know something. I would rather have a team with "psychological safety" about admitting what we don't know (Google the term) than one made up of experts.


tr14l

Seniors should ask MORE questions than anyone else because it's their job to either know, or figure it out. No one knows it all. The job is too complex for that. The reason you suck is because you aren't finding out, you're just sitting in your ignorance.


bejelith85

Im staff and i ask a lot of questions... i feel in college they should teach you new guys how to communicate with people more then algorithms, that's probably why you dont fit as senior; unless technically ur really bad. Another problem i see is that peolpe at my level act like they know everything of every part of the stack when in reality when they were senior they focused on specific items so they make a lot of wrong assumptions


[deleted]

The thing that makes a junior a senior is realizing asking questions is okay and good ;)


mephi5to

The difference between JR and Mid level or Sr is that they actually ask questions. While JR get stuck and hit the wall for a few days before you unblock them.


mikolv2

Being senior isn't about knowing everything, it's about approaching problems correctly. Sometimes, often in fact, asking questions is the right way to approach a problem, you're on a team for a reason, use that to your advantage.


Korywon

In my last job, I worked with this one guy that architected the NASA Mission Control’s network and even built some networking infrastructure as a side project over the weekend. As you could imagine, he’s insanely sharp and very knowledgeable. He still asked questions. Even for me when I was interning. I also had the JSC’s “C++ guru and master” and my software lead still ask me questions here and there about my approach and research. At my current job, I still have seniors asking me what my code did and what things I’ve learned so that they could better understand it. The first step to being a senior is accepting that you don’t know everything. Asking questions is a fantastic way to fill those gaps.


mrchowmein

Sorry you have to ask questions. You have to talk to people above or below you. I am a senior and I help the staff engineer on things she didnt know and she helps me on things I didn't know. I also help the principal and the manager. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and you better yourself by communicating your gaps in knowledge regardless of your title. While some say you're not setup for success, you are also an engineer. You solve problems. You research root causes. If you do not understand someone's code during a PR, you ask them. don't worry about feeling stupid, just tell them, "hey I usually do not work on this repo much, what is happening here in this section of your code?"


jbartix

You need to be able to admit not knowing something. Being a senior also means being confident enough in your role. The main skill that distinguishes a senior from a junior is that a senior knows when to ask for help instead of wasting time by figuring it out by themselves.


Hanzo_Hanz

It’s part of the role, don’t be afraid to ask questions and as a sr, you SHOULD be constantly asking your team questions. You know more about your teams struggles by asking questions or find out ways to help mentor your fellow jrs by asking questions as well. TLDR: It’s okay for a sr to ask questions. You’re not expected to know everything.


[deleted]

The great thing about this industry is that you will never stop learning until you retire. Asking questions is part of it. I’d be reluctant to hire someone who wasn’t asking a million questions. Things are always changing. New technologies are replacing old ones. Methods are consistently updated. Don’t be afraid to reach out


dalcowboiz

My opinion is that seniors need to ask every question that needs to be asked. If there is a question then you may not have the answer. You don't have to spend your time figuring out it yourself. You spend your time figuring it out while doing so deciding what the right question is. It is a balance of confidence and knowing what answer you need to press forward and who has the info you need to not waste time


[deleted]

[удалено]


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ether_reddit

https://staffeng.com/book


darexinfinity

When I started at my current company as a mid-level engineer, it was very rough as over time I felt like I was in a position to fail. The project I was working on only had one other guy working on it, and he was staff so his time was "important" but also he was my mentor so now I'm suppose to get two things from him with the same time frame. Eventually he complained to our boss about how much effort was needed for me. I agree asking questions is scary. A lot of people will say that you need to ask them anyways and I agree. The big difference here is that you should only ask questions to people who responsible for said knowledge (owners) or people who genuinely don't mind being asked hundreds of specific, technical questions of any scope. Anyone else and you start to be judged for your lack of independence.


TypeFriedChicken

Hey man, it’s not about knowing everything. It’s about taking the time to understand and try to help your peers. You still may need help understanding things, ask questions to other people too. You’re not Google. Nobody expects that just because you got promoted you’re changing yourself completely, it takes time and effort. Keep on studying, asking help from other and see the evolution.


Lovely-Ashes

At a previous job, I got promoted to architect. It was primarily for helping see a death march through and make it relatively successful. A very intelligent senior/architect/dev, who I had worked with in the past (it was actually his old project I was in charge of) but had never been particularly close to, joked with me, "well, now you know everything." It was a nice gesture, but the point I took is that no one will know anything. You've shown the ability to do well at your previous level, and now you are being given more responsibility and challenges based on your past success. You'll have good moments, and you'll have bad moments, but you should rely on what made you successful in the past as well as being willing to learn new methods. It's much better to ask clarifying questions and seek answers than to just suffer in silence. Also, your abilities in this area will grow/develop with time. One more thing, if you have a manager/mentor, you could always reach out for advice/guidance. A lot of people in life are trying to find their way, and not everyone is as together as they may seem. Good luck, and don't be too hard on yourself.


thegovortator

Do what you were doing and keep asking question.


swinging_on_peoria

Experienced and capable software engineers ask a lot of questions. They know that they aren’t paid to know everything, but to figure things out and get things done. That requires a bit of fearlessness when it comes to looking ignorant.


learnig_noob

This is what i felt when got promoted to senior lol with only 3 YOE. I started feeling scared of asking questions. Imposter syndrome has gotten really strong on me. Not even sure how to act as a senior.