Ask HN: Should I take a step back in Seniority? (Sen-Mid)

[positionPanic]

I am currently a Senior Dev at the Eastern Europe branch of a well known (esp here) company and I have around 7 practical years experience in programming (a few more in other IT services).

I won't go into much details (colleagues read HN), but my dev stack isn't the best paid, however I am in the process of becoming a Team Lead at the current company.

I recently got offered to interview for a senior position at another company where I will learn a much better stack and new technologies.

All was well on the interview (from my point), but it seems that they didn't deem me as Senior material yet and want me to join as a mid level (pay is still higher than current, but not that much and is a lot lower than what I wanted).

At what point do you think taking a step back in seniority is worth it? Does it actually even matter if the pay is better and I will learn a better stack? However I will likely make TL soon and get the same pay in the following months.

I feel a bit cheated by the whole process.

[jstx1]

> pay is still higher than current, but not that much and is a lot lower than what I wanted

Don't join on these terms, from the first day you'll be resenting the company and thinking about how to move somewhere else or how to get a promotion. It's a bad position to start the relationship for both sides (which is also why companies shouldn't aggressively low-ball offers).

[positionPanic]

Pay from offer is ok, but the range for which I actually interviewed was great, which is why it's a letdown for me.

I am a bit angry currently, will sleep on it before answering the offer.

[tmaly]

Why not renegotiate? There is really no downside and only upside here if you have an existing job.

[twobitshifter]

you can always negotiate for more, company won’t start your offer at their limit.

[positionPanic]

They said they have limits for positions, guessing this is the one for mids, as I requested a (known) senior range. (This one is close to the starting senior one)

[Haul4ss]

Rather than looking at titles, I would focus on what you want to do.

"Software dev" encompasses a wide variety of work. As a simplified example, if you were a senior frontend JS dev who wanted to get into writing kernel modules, you might have to take a job title and/or pay cut since you're less senior in that niche than your current one. But if you really want to be a kernel dev, it might be worthwhile.

So, what do you want to do? What kind of dev do you want to be? Will the new gig get you closer to that, regardless of title? Thinking beyond just tech stack to how you want this arc of your career to progress, will new job be better?

Also look at non-tech stack things. Do you like your team? Do you like your industry? Has your boss treated you well? Do you have equity opportunities at current or new gig? Which stack/niche has a higher ceiling of potential opportunity?

[positionPanic]

It's just normal backend, the product is less interesting than my current one.

Current team is in a state of panic since a few months ago and it's quite chaotic (which actually lets me train soft skills).

Current benefits are a lot better then the ones offered by the other company which are basic as far as the industry goes.

New stack has better potential long-term, current one short-term.

[twobitshifter]

If this is a typical offer you should negotiate for both title and salary.

Titles are fungible and don’t cost the company. You may run up against some ego problems if you skip over the title of your supervisor but that’s about it. Taking what they offer isn’t your only choice.

The same is true of salary. They’re likely hoping you will take just a little more to join. If they won’t raise salary, seek a signing bonus, equity, or other incentives. Leverage the weak title to your advantage but emphasizing that the role is a step back and you’ll need some assurance/security/benefit beyond the small increase in salary.

here’s a good article about the status vs money tradeoff

https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-over-money-money...

[sshine]

> At what point do you think taking a step back in seniority is worth it?

Job titles have different levels of inflation at different companies.

You mention that "seniority" comes in two flavors: More specialist, more responsibility.

You wouldn't be taking a step back in seniority either way, but you'd be choosing between growing in two different directions.

I currently work for a company where we choose to not differentiate job titles among developers, so I'm really just a developer. Still, it's the most challenging job I ever had, and it'll look cool on paper in spite of the lack of "ninja" in the title.

> I will likely make TL soon and get the same pay in the following months.

As @jstx says in another thread: Accepting a low-ball offer has bad psychology.

It sounds like the pay difference for their mid-level position isn't big enough.

[testbjjl]

> At what point do you think taking a step back in seniority is worth it?

If you don’t get offers at the level at which you feel best matches your level of experience it may be time to adjust your expectations. If you apply for a position and the firm feels your skill set is better suited for a more senior role then your all set.

It’s not personal. Management loves hiring competent people for the positions they need filled and don’t like hiring people without a skill set that can make their team meet expectations.

[andsoitis]

One thing to realize is that different companies have different level criteria, so a senior software engineer at one company doesn't mean a different company would consider you a senior software engineer. Same applies to staff software engineer, etc.

Another thing to realize is that tech companies, in my experience, are less interested in your title and more interested in the work you've done and what they perceive your potential to be.

This brings me to your question: "At what point do you think taking a step back in seniority is worth it?" I think one key thing to consider is whether the step would expand your skillset, stretch you in new ways.

[positionPanic]

I understand seniority is different from company to company, however I didn't actually get negative feedback during the interview, which is probably the reason why I think it was unfair.

It will expand my skillset a lot, this is the main reason I actually went to the interview, however there aren't many other upsides, the pay difference will likely be negligible when (if) I become TL and be able to look for a TL job for higher pay.

[poisonborz]

What would you rather do later on? Move on to management or stay an engineer? (eg. building up knowledge in specific tech stacks).

Job titles don't may not mean much while you are at the same company, but once people review your CV, it's a BIG deal. Having a leadership experience opens doors like no other, both on the amount of offers and salary.

The catch is that you will be expected to have lot more soft skills - raw coding chops are not that important for an engineer, even less for a team lead. If you are up for this, and you feel fine at this company, it's probably worth to stay in the lead position for ~1y and then look around with your refreshed CV.

[positionPanic]

> but once people review your CV, it's a BIG deal. Having a leadership experience opens doors like no other, both on the amount of offers and salary.

This is exactly what's stopping me from accepting it, in year or so I could make a leap to another company as TL for a much higher pay.

I do prefer a tech lead position than a team lead one, but one can easily transition to the other once you got your foot in the door (you got it in your CV).

[ipaddr]

You decided already by saying you have been cheated. Now you are looking for reasons.

Let's say you felt neutral. If you want to stay a programmer and make more long term changing stacks now will give you the same pay less responsibility (more time to learn the new framework) and put you in a better position. If you want management stay where you are.

Based on why you started looking you should switch the next time this comes up. Switching stacks is harder the further you go, don't let this gift drift away.

[jacknews]

I would ignore the tech stack.

Look at the quality of the people and your place among them. An increase in responsibility is a step up, but moving to a stronger team might be even more so.

[greatpostman]

I say the opposite, strong entrenched teams are hard to get good work from. Op will get the tech scraps and learn nothing

[jacknews]

By 'strong team' I mean a more highly-skilled team, not necessarily a more close-knit team. You don't grow your abilities from a stack (you just learn the new stack), but from people.

[flappyeagle]

Title doesn’t matter. Taking a step back in seniority will actually improve your chances of getting promoted because you’re starting from an earlier position.

If you like the tangibles, and you think the company culture and coworkers are good, take the deal (after some negotiation of course)

[positionPanic]

Negotiations are off the table it seems, more like "take it or leave it".

[notjustanymike]

> I will learn a much better stack and new technologies.

Do this. Learn from the place with best practices, it has long term positive ramifications for your career well beyond the next job.

[positionPanic]

This is what I did on the previous company, I learnt a lot, but was close to burnout and have being quite bitter ever since, now I just can't stand corporate bs and I am wondering if this is just a repeat.

[dingosity]

Sounds like Amazon. Go with your gut, if you feel cheated, you probably are.

[whoomp12342]

if its not advantageous to make a move, dont.