[jmadsen]

It seems to me the whole problem amounts to companies deciding to redefine the word "entry", then acting all disappointed when no one else uses that definition.

"Entry" means "to enter the workforce". It means you have pre-work experience such as a specific degree, speak a certain language, etc.

If you advertise an "entry level web development" job and I just boot camped for that, I am qualified and will apply.

If you want "Junior Developer", say so.

(Comment by someone that this is a gimmick to reduce salary sounds pretty right on.)

[Aloha]

Entry Level ought to be 'willing to train', Junior, some experience, Senior, 8+ years of experience.

Sadly title inflation is also a thing.

[epicureanideal]

I think part of the problem is the titles themselves...

"Senior" implies "Highly Experienced" meaning "lots of years of experience".

Whereas it's completely possible for a person with 3-4 years of experience to be a "Very Good Engineer" within their specific domain and be as valuable, respected, listened-to, etc. as a "Senior Engineer". It doesn't happen often, but it happens.

If we had titles more like "Apprentice", "Journeyman", and "Master" Software Engineer, then we wouldn't have this issue. Someone could be a Journeyman after 2 years or 4 depending on how rapidly they progressed through their "apprenticeship" phase, and to "Master" as soon as they had completed sufficiently complex work to have completed a "masterpiece" equivalent.

[jashmatthews]

> "Senior" implies "Highly Experienced" meaning "lots of years of experience".

Not necessarily. Medicine has "Senior Resident" or similar in some countries as the last step before becoming an independent physician. Law and finance have senior associate before junior partner.

[pc86]

Well we're talking about developers, not physicians or attorneys. We don't have multiple steps like resident, physician, associate, partner, etc.

[jashmatthews]

We should! Lots of bigger places have senior engineer, then staff engineer etc.

[bovermyer]

Maybe we should.

[arkh]

I'm starting to think that the French Compagnons should add software developers to their list of professions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnons_du_Tour_de_France if you don't know what it is.

[pjc50]

English equivalent: https://www.wcit.org.uk/members/anon/new.html?destination=%2... "The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists".

Slightly weird mapping of the traditional Establishment to our industry. Their home page includes items such as "Capercaillie Shoot" (not clear if this involves real grouse as it's in Essex), and "Report on the Funeral of Brigadier Tim Hackworth OBE PhD"

[clappski]

They have their weird titles because they're a livery company, similar to the Worshipful Company of Marketors (marketors.org/). Perhaps one the day WCIT will get a Royal Charter as well. You can read more about livery companies and their relationship to the City here: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-the-city/history/Pages...

I'm pretty sure the shooting is just clays, and not live birds.

[bad_user]

There's nothing wrong with "Senior".

Lots of years of experience translate to having a proven track record of delivered value, along with management skills and experience of failure, things that can't be substituted by talent or knowledge acquired from reading about the works of others.

> a person with 3-4 years of experience to be a "Very Good Engineer"

Not the same thing — this is actually the same problem as with hiring practices that people love to hate. Good college degrees, open source contributions, algorithmic exercises during the interview, etc... are all designed to prove your worth. People don't like you for what you are, because you have to show them what you're capable of first. And with 3-4 years of experience, you can slap that "Master" label on your job title, but without being able to show something for it, people will just laugh at you.

Also this trend of disrespecting the elderly is nothing new. Ageism is a thing and your opinion is actually in line with what the entire world is already thinking. Younger means cheaper, more prone to abuse, to working long hours and for many tasks just as capable as a more expensive senior.

Of course, this is beneficial to young people, but the tragedy is that it doesn't last. You'll be playing a whole different tune in 5 years max, either because you'll end up competing with people that are 5 to 10 years younger and cheaper, or because the bubble will finally burst due to automation, leaving this sea of STEM graduates out of a job, just like steel workers in the nineties. We are automating ourselves as part of our job description, so it should be no surprise when it happens.

[Chyzwar]

Lots of years of experience prove nothing. If someone was working for 10 years in Java backend apps, using outdated tech and in an environment that delivered value is secondary to risk, he/she is not senior.

3 years is minimum for getting close to being competent. I would argue that before that you will deliver very little.

[AstralStorm]

They are a senior engineer... in their specific scope.

These levels are not exactly transferable necessarily.

You should be able to trust that an experienced developer like this would be able to adapt to newer methods and API.

[JustSomeNobody]

There is absolutely no reason to believe that someone with 10 years Java on the backend can't go do, say, .Net at an equivalent level. It wouldn't take long to pick up the syntax, libraries and tooling.

If you take language out of it, the experience is easily transferable.

The problem is everyone thinks their project/product is special and they're inventing something completely new. You're not. Sorry. This is software where everything old is new again.

[mywittyname]

Your experience is not limited to what you do at your job. My previous job was working on a 10+ year old Java backend app and my current job is doing data mining and ML (which I was qualified for and hit the ground running). There is almost no overlap between the positions, yet I've performed well enough in both roles.

One should not expect that people use every skill they have at every job they do.

[JustSomeNobody]

Interesting ideas. Maybe this would also change the hiring practices of Software Engineers. You wouldn't have to white board fizzbuzz if you were a "Master" S.E.

[bfung]

Was going to non-helpfully comment that as the title says:

  61% of "Entry-Level" Jobs require 3+ years of Experience

And <insert stat> of "Senior Software Engineer" jobs require only 3 years of Experience.

In the Bay Area culture, 3 years is enough time to jump jobs once:

  year 1 = figure out how to navigate tech corp
  year 2 = figure out that it's a sh!t show.
  year 3 = jump and find greener pastures.  repeat year 1.

[closeparen]

It isn’t the worst thing to have a progression you can step up through every couple of years. The problem is that there needs to be many more degrees of “Eng II” before invoking the word Senior. If Senior came after Eng 5 or something it might not be so bad.

[watwut]

I have seen senior engineers with 1.5 years of experience and totally confident (in startup).

And my lifelong experience is that such pepole have pretty good careers, better then humble more self aware people.

[sb8244]

How did they get to be seniors in their companies? They didn't give the title to themselves, so someone must value their skills. Is having the title mutually exclusive to being humble or self aware?

[dorgo]

Some years ago they introduced job titles at the place where I work. My boss asked me: which job title do you want? I said: senior developer. Her said: ok. Master of the universe would have passed too.

[mads_ravn]

Same thing happenend to me. I went for "Grand Poobah of Software Engineering". The boss said ok, but I think the printed business cards ended up with senior developer.

As an aside, a friend got listed with the title cosmocrator (ruler of the universe, when translated directly from greek) in the phonebook. All it took was for him to request it when they asked for a title, and, when asked what it was, reply that it was a form of kinesiology.

All in all, you probably should not but to much stock into titles. Even less so, if they are not protected.

[icebraining]

What about Software Wizard?

https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor....

[JustSomeNobody]

I think I would have gone with something unique like, "Computer Programmer."

[mywittyname]

Undetectably Sentient AI.

[gaius]

They didn't give the title to themselves

LinkedIn is full of people who have mysteriously sprouted a Senior prefix that they definitely didn’t have when I was at the same company at the same time. So it probably is self-granted in most cases.

[sb8244]

Very true. I hope references catch up to them!

[croon]

Paying someone more costs money, giving them a title is free.

[watwut]

It is startup with little experience, so if you act confident and never go against leadership they will think that you know everything. There were also people with 0 experience and 1.5 is significantly more then that.

I am confident in claiming that title was dependent more on confidence then skills. You got it basically for never admitting you don't know something.

[tuananh]

and here in my country, 2-3 years of exp get you senior title, no matter how good (or mediocre) you are. It's just sad.

[raducu]

"Entry level" means entry level pay, not experience :)

[june_bug]

Junior Developer is an entry level job title.

As a qualifier, it is a demotion from “Developer” alone. A Junior Developer is less than all the other ordinary, plain old general Developer roles.

It’s basically a paid intern role.

The only people who would ever accept such a title are kids who don’t mind being marked, appropos of nothing, before first impressions are made, as a lesser subordinate, untrusted with serious decisions.

When a recruiter, hiring manager or HR contact offers a Junior role, it means you get paid less.

In a world where business cards and email signatures serve as pretext for introductions, you see a title with Junior in it, and it reeks of green college grads.