[tkiolp4]

I wonder how many engineers out there are truly aligned with their company’s leadership. In my experience (more than 10 years of experience), I have experienced the following stages:

- junior engineer: I really didn’t know leadership even existed back then. I was just too focused on my Jira issues and PRs. I was enjoying the tech

- “medior” engineer. Got to knew leadership and a bunch other inflated titles. Didn’t bother because I was getting better at my tech skills and I could ask for more salary and raises. I was still enjoying the tech and started to appreciate soft skills

- senior engineer. Got more involved with upper management, but never really talked to any C level executive besides intro chattings… but didn’t care either. I didn’t care because I was finally making real money and playing politics was never my thing. Felt entitled to earn that much money because I sweat blood to get my bachelor and master’s degree in CS plus I have read all the tech books “a software engineer should read”. Still enjoying tech, but giving personal opinions about tech was becoming more and more painful

- “staff” engineer. I only enjoy working on personal projects. I try to share my limited knowledge with younger colleagues. Don’t enjoy making tech decisions with other senior engineers (because everyone has their own preferences). Too late to start getting interested in what leadership has in mind… my plan is now to work on my own projects and try to be self dependent (in the meantime, “staff engineer” money doesn’t hurt)