Ask HN: Is it bad that I don’t want to be a senior engineer? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is it bad that I don’t want to be a senior engineer?

Work at a Fortune 500, I’m a senior engineer who is expected to be a tech lead for my team and work on cross functional projects.

I’m burned out, I don’t want to be responsible for architectural decisions. I don’t want to write TDDs. I just want to be given tickets and run with them. I miss those days.

I just need to relax a bit in a role with less responsibility. Has anyone ever felt this way before? What did you do about it? Am I wrong to feel this way?

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My perspective based on the places I've worked:

* Jr Engineer - Your work is given to you as bite-sized well-defined tasks.

* Mid-level - You're working on and delivering entire projects. The project is often well-defined.

* Sr Level - You're more working on a problem space, and it's much more open-ended. You may have to come up with and define your own projects.

* Tech Lead - Your focus shifts from your own impact, to the impact of your entire team. This is the biggest shift, where you need to spend way more time communicating, getting alignment with multiple teams, etc.

I sympathize with OP for missing the days of only working on well-defined tasks. However, being able to tackle open-ended problems is a huge value to businesses and it's the reason senior engineers make a lot more.

> However, being able to tackle open-ended problems is a huge value to businesses and it's the reason senior engineers make a lot more.

If you have "open-ended" problems, your managers are doing a bad job. Hell, I know that happens in real life, but then senior engineers are not more just senior engineers, they are jack of all trades (and not only at the tech level): they know about people, they know about product, and sure they know about tech. With these kind of senior engineers, one doesn't need managers anymore.

> I’m a senior engineer who is expected to be a tech lead for my team and work on cross functional projects.

Shouldn't the title then be "Is it bad that I don't want to be a tech lead?"?

I think that there is a distinction between a tech lead and a senior engineer. As a tech lead you have more responsibility for the success of a given project while as a senior engineer you're (mostly) responsible for your own contributions.

So is it bad if you don't want to be a senior engineeer? Yes, because it's a very natural progression from being a non-senior engineer. It would almost be like saying that you don't want to be good at your job.

Is it bad if you don't want to be a tech lead? Not at all, it's a different job, requires a different skillset and you should absolutely be able to turn it down if it isn't for you.

I want to be good at my job, but not necessarily a senior dev. At my company, you're required to work extra hours as a senior dev, which really negates any pay raise. Not to mention, I've filled the role of senior dev and even tech lead for a couple years with the politics getting in the way of the official promotions (and management not following HR policies).

It sounds like you don't want to be a senior dev at this specific company.

Maybe. It seems to me like there are similar issues at other companies.

This is a good perspective, and you’re right. I don’t want to be a tech lead. It just seems like all senior eng roles imply that.

I hear ya. I love building products and pushing boundaries.

I really detest all the whining and crying that’s in software. I understand junior developers will be slower and need mentorship, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Here is an example on the front-end:

Using DOM methods to interact with a webpage without string parsing, as opposed to querySelectors, provides superior flexibility. You can do all kinds of cool things that querySelectors won’t allow. Also querySelectors are slow at about 450x slower in chrome and around 242,000x slower in Firefox. That’s the difference between 1 foot and 46 miles. People can’t live without stupid shit and will fight tooth and nail for conveniences. It’s not about learning or a tiny bit of extra effort. It’s about insecurity.

That was just one example of many. Worse is the extreme Invented Here syndrome where many developers expect NPM packages to do their job for them.

I would be really hesitant to be a team lead at the wrong organization because tolerance of the childish bullshit petty insecurities could be a career death trap. At the right organization a team lead would be allowed to set high standards to drive a product forward to market with greater durability and performance, but that requires an affirmed commitment from higher management.

I feel the same (from time to time). It's becoming harder and harder to be just "a software engineer" in this industry. All of a sudden, the "perfect" software engineer must:

- be "product oriented: "Think big", "Think customers-first", "Get shit done"

- make his/her colleagues better (by mentoring, by leading by example, by giving talks)

- stand up and make himself heard (e.g., working on projects that touch on multiple teams... because staying in your corner is so 90s)

- focus more on "delivering features" instead of making the products more stable (otherwise, no salary increase. Bugfixes don't bring money)

- be on call, because "you build it, you run it, you own it"

- ... all of these, of course, while keeping your tech skills up-to-date (which is in itself quite taxing)

I’ve felt the same way, and actually left my last role 3 months ago because of it.

I did have some burn out, however I was increasingly becoming more aware that the small salary jump for a senior role just didn’t match the massive jump in responsibilities.

In the end I’m working on my own stuff now, but failing that I’d be looking for a more normal role, or significantly more remuneration to take on that stress/work again.

My company gives a 7% raise and expects an extra hour of work (13% increase). Why would I take an hourly rate cut for a position with more responsibilities? I work at a financial company that constantly pushes financial acumen. If workers actually had the financial acumen to recognize what's going on...

Definitely not wrong!

But your feelings are worth some introspection. Why are you burned out? Is it because the company is expecting too much of you? Is it the wrong role? Is it because you are holding a pager and don't want to be?

I'd think about less about why you want to return back to just fixing tickets and more about how the current situation isn't working. Then you can make some moves. Examples from my career:

   * I was at a small company where only the two senior devs were on call. Not sustainable. I worked with the execs to document things such that everyone in the company did tier1 on call pager duty.
   * I was at a company where I was kinda bored in my role. I talked to my manager and did a tour with the database management group (this was years ago). Learned a lot, came back to SWE with more energy.
   * I was not happy as an eng mgr for a variety of reasons. I shifted to devrel and have been learning new skills with increased pay.

You aren't required to remain an engineer, either. There are many auxiliary functions at companies which benefit from the skills of a sr dev:

   * devrel (as above)
   * product owner (seen that shift happen multiple times)
   * technical trainer (I've done this, happy to chat about it with you)
   * sales engineer
   * support engineer (tier 3 at a bigco can get some interesting tickets, I imagine)
   * startup CTO (want to wear all the hats and take a risk, you'll have plenty of co-founders).

I wrote more about making a move into an related occupation here: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2020/10/05/how-to-make-a-...

Going to say yes, because most Senior Eng roles are not much different than regular Eng roles. The title is given as part of a recruiting tactic/negotiation.

Good chance you can find a Senior role elsewhere that's just coding.

Heh, i'm a "Team Lead" for a small/medium company and it's a joke. We're in desperate need of the CTO/Leads to own problems in our development cycles (the usual, tests, documentation, etc), and for my area i recognize, can identify and want to prioritize it... yet i'm too damn busy. Everyone is. I "own" several mission critical aspects in the company and we just don't have the manpower to move it to someone else.

Your burnout and architectural decision comment resonated with me.

I don't see anything wrong with that but I do feel like you can still attain that same role but have it less overloaded. Maybe try a different company or share this with your boss?

I think I rarely read about people being burned out at Fortune 500 companies but saw your other comment that you aren't actually at one.

Thanks for your response. By the way how did you find this thread? I thought it might’ve long been lost to the sea of submissions.

Perhaps from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/ask

I think everyone gets to where you are at some point. If they do not, then they are not trying new things. Nothing wrong with deciding you hate the current and want to return to what you enjoy.

I am in the same boat, and cannot wait to return to the job you are doing.

Remember, if you love your work, are you really working?

What are you doing now?

I am working for a company that does not build tech, so I am not in the companies business line. My boss is not technical, I am the most technical employee. We have contractors who maintain the network. I manage the contractors and a couple of employees. I do not write SW. I write proposals, go to meetings, explain why buying some shiny object will not improve the work environment.

What I love is SW development. I love creating algorithms, either by myself or part of a group. I love debugging code.

So why did I take the current job? My boss was leaving, he was technical, they were looking at hiring a non tech as a replacement, or moving me into the role. I realized if they hired someone else, they would not do anything but ask me when will it be done.

So when I say I want to go back to development, I want it with a boss who is at least semi technical. I want the company to produce something in the tech field. Also considering contracting. Ideal job would be going digital nomad. But for a variety of reasons, I cannot leave for at least a year, but optimally 18 months. Assuming the economy holds up.

The problem is the pay usually doesn't come with the lower responsibility.

I was a senior dev some where and decided to quit because they were outsourcing and reorg-ing and using a weird platform. I quit. but, I sure miss the regular raises and the pension and the 401k match.

That is fair. Are you in the Bay Area?

It depends.

I'm a senior SWE at a non-tech (tech is a cost center) company. However, many tech (tech is a profit center) companies - not just FAANG - will pay at least, if not significantly more, for midlevel roles. Hence one of the reasons I don't mind downgrading.

OP mentions "Fortune 500", which I often see used for non-tech companies. If this is the case, the above is something to keep in mind. The downside is you're most likely to be leetcoded during interviews so you need to prepare.

Decaf is it fair to say that you’re experiencing the same thing? I’m not actually at a Fortune 500, I shouldn’t have said that. Tech is a profit center and I’m in the Bay Area.

Yeah I’m just wondering if I should either work at a place where tech is a cost center or just seek a less exhausting L4 role somewhere.

I also work at a "tech as cost center" company. I think you would be annoyed by the policies and politics. Some of the slowness and product-level decisions annoy me to no end.

I think you misunderstood me :).

If you have a pedigree at any well known "tech as a profit center" Silicon Valley company, you will likely be treated as a celebrity at a non-tech company and given a senior position doing those very activities you are trying to avoid.

No, it is fine if that is the role you enjoy and you do not the expectation of being compensated at a higher level.

why do you think compensation tied to "higher level"? Also why do think "senior" is higher level? It it because of year of experience or kind of tasks? If it is because of kind of task senior does , does it mean what junior does is less valuable? Who decides? Can we not question whole foundation of compensation and "title" based system? Of course I am not asking you to answer. Just thinking aloud here :)

Make sure you're at least well compensated for it. At least 2x to make it worth your while IMO.

Why don't you look for another job that has the same title or similar but with different responsibilities?

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