[aqwsedopl]

Promotions are just a form of vendor lock-in that (especially) small companies employ to keep people longer. I’ve seen barely two years out of college non cs majors promoted to senior engineer based on finishing some “large project” which anyone else in the engineering team could have done.

The real sleezy thing is that by promoting someone to senior who isn’t nearly qualified at all, the company has now made it exponentially more difficult for these engineers to switch companies. Esp funny is the promotion of unqualified individuals to “project lead”.

I’ve seen many of these individuals move to next companies and revert back to standard level software engineer.

It’s never about titles - you need to be aware that companies are using the titles against you rather than for you.

Also it pisses off the engineers in your organization who do deserve a raise to see unqualified promotions. Its a one way ticket for a small company to very quickly lose its true talent (80/20 rule) and talent follows talent. Once you get a few supporting cast leave, even the actually qualified senior engineers won’t want to stick around longer because they will feel intellectually isolated as well as feel like the engineering management are inept.

[scarface74]

I wouldn’t even go that far. The dev lead over one of the teams is far more qualified to be the lead over that team because of his company knowledge - he’s been there for five years. He’s a smart guy but I don’t know how well he would fare outside of our company. This was his only job out of college.

I’m one of the three oldest developers - two of us are in our mid 40s and one in his mid 50s. The “architect” is well qualified but he has a lot on his plate. The other dev in his 50s also fought against being made a lead.

Edit:

I usually don’t comment on downvotes, but I’m really interested in knowing what could possibly be offensive or disagreeable about this post.

[bootsz]

Yup, that was my last company . Had a bunch of inexperienced devs getting promoted to "Senior" all the time. I think I counted once and figured out that we had more people working there with the title Senior Software Engineer than we did regular Software Engineer's.

After one year of moderate effort I too got the promotion, with almost no pay raise. The problem of giving everyone a certain title is you basically completely dilute any meaning or status it conveys.

I soon went on to FANG and am now a regular ol' Software Engineer again. But I'd much rather be bottom rung at a top company than a "Senior" whatever at a company where it means nothing.

[discordance]

This applies at both small and large companies alike

[scarface74]

I don’t care about titles at all. I care about three things when it comes to my job:

- Technology/Career enhancement - where will this job put me in three years if I want to find another job

- Environment - I’ve grown increasingly picky about my environment and work life balance.

- Money - at least pay me the local median wage for what I bring to the table. Don’t insult me. But beyond that, money is the least important criteria.