On Being A Senior Engineer – Am I Already There?

What does it need to be a Senior Engineer. A title that sounds like the promised land for most of the engineers. But, as well as terms like Agile or DevOps this term lacks a clear definition.

Konstantin shows why the term is misleading and why we should rather talk about Mature Engineers. He shows what aspects characterize a Mature Engineer so that everyone can decide at which point of the journey he or she is currently at. Therefore, Konstantin will discuss a set of questions. What skills do I need to have? Do I need to master as many programming languages as possible? Which practices are important? What is absolutely toxic? What is my role within my team and within the engineering organization?

Transcript

1. Konstantin Diener | konstantin.diener@cosee.biz Am I Already There? On Being A Senior Engineer
3. Konstantin Diener CTO and Co-Founder of cosee
8. When is one actually a Senior Engineer?
11. You don’t wake up one day and you are “senior” just because your title reflects that upon a promotion. Senior engineers don’t know everything. They’re not perfect in their technical knowledge, and they’re OK with that. John Allspaw
12. I prefer to call them Mature Engineers.
13. Full Skill Developer Was ein Entwickler außer Coden noch können sollte Konstantin Diener konstantin.diener@cosee.biz | @onkelkodi https://talks.cosee.biz/talk/d4777604-98cb-4c3c-9783-056790507da8
14. Mature Engineers …
15. … don’t need fancy job titles.
16. A huge body of research— hundreds of studies—shows that when people are put in positions of power, … Robert Sutton
17. … they start talking more, taking what they want for themselves, ignoring what other people say or want, ignoring how less powerful people react to their behavior, acting more rudely, and generally treating any situation or person as a means for satisfying their own needs … Robert Sutton
18. Robert Sutton The No Asshole Rule
19. Mature Engineers …
20. … are no A***holes
21. … the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behavior, excluding physical contact. Robert Sutton
22. But, this Engineer is that important!
23. There is such thing as an A***hole TCO!
24. Assholes have devastating cumulative e ff ects partly because nasty interactions have a far bigger impact on our moods than positive interactions — five times the punch, according to recent research. Robert Sutton
25. Enforcing the no asshole rule isn’t just management’s job. Robert Sutton
26. Mature Engineers do not avoid conflicts.
27. Mature Engineers …
28. … foster constructive critisism and discussion.
29. Intel preaches that the only thing worse than too much confrontation is no confrontation at all. Intel
31. We as an industry need to (of course) refrain from critiques of human character and condition, but not shy away from critiques of work product. Theo Schlossnagle
32. We need to get tougher skin and be able to receive critique through a lens that attempts to eliminate personal focus. There will be assholes, they should be shunned. Theo Schlossnagle
33. But the attitude that someone’s code is their baby should come to an end. Code doesn’t have feelings, doesn’t develop complexes and certainly doesn’t exhibit the most important trait (the ability to reproduce) of that which carries for your genetic strains. Theo Schlossnagle
35. „Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing le ft to take away.“ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
36. • What might be missing? • What could cause this not to work? • Can you please generate as many antitheses to my idea as possible? • Even if it is technically sound, can the others in the organization understand, operate, extend and troubleshoot it? • How could Evil User Stories look like? Critique
37. But, that has a lot to do with people and not with machines.
38. Konstantin, I studied computer science because I don't want to have anything to do with people! a former colleague
39. Mature Engineers …
40. ... have their product and their customers in mind.
41. That means contact with lots of people who know nothing about technology.
42. https://xkcd.com/2501
43. Does that mean Customers? 😱
44. That’s the job of our Product Owner … 😎
45. If you’re only using your engineers to code, you’re only getting half their value. Marty Cagan
46. Target Customer Underserved Needs Feature Set UX Value Proposition Product Market Fit nach Dan Olsens „Product-Market Fit Pyramid“
47. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7YUQMa2Q0g
48. Konstantin Diener | konstantin.diener@cosee.biz | @coseeaner … die Entwicklungs-Teams kennen sollten Product-Discovery-Techniken https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBMF56GQUOM
50. Product Owner Designer Developer
51. […] a team can still get by with another engineer in the trio, as long as that engineer takes responsibility for fully vetting feasibility and getting buy-in from the rest of the engineering team as they work through assumption testing for the ideas that they are considering. Teresa Torres https://www.producttalk.org/2024/10/engineer-lead-product-trio/
52. Mature Engineers …
53. ... reduce complexity.
54. • How does the smallest possible solution look like? • Do we need a Spike? • How can we use as little abstraction as possible? • Make it work, make it fast, make it scale! Dev @ Trio
55. Great so ft ware today is o ft en preferable to perfect so ft ware tomorrow. Andrew Hunt & David Thomas, The Pragmatic Programmer
56. Along similar lines, psychologist Karl Weick contends that aiming for “small wins” is o ft en a more comforting and ultimately e ff ective strategy than aiming for “big wins“. Robert Sutton
58. Mature Engineers …
59. ... make their assumptions explicit.
60. And help us to read code …
61. Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. Abelson and Sussman
62. … to understand architecture …
63. … and to understand decisions.
64. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YotLyjDBng4
65. Wie kann es trotzdem funktionieren? Technologieentscheidungen im Team sind schwer! https://talks.cosee.biz/talk/8044646c-1a8e-4024-902a-aa0adb88c074
66. Mature Engineers …
67. … do not shy away from estimates.
68. Konstantin Diener | konstantin.diener@cosee.biz | @coseeaner … das Enfant terrible der So!ware-Entwicklung Schätzungen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-kp5oYnPoo
69. Mature Engineers …
70. … teach and learn.
71. The Best Test of a Person’s Character Is How He or She Treats Those with Less Power (especially when no one is watching). Robert Sutton
72. Tanya Reilly The Sta ff Engineer’s Path
73. Catalyst Group Individual The Sta ff Engineer’s Path
74. Group Individual Catalyst Advice Teaching Guardrails Opportunity The Sta ff Engineer’s Path
75. Group Individual Catalyst Mentoring, sharing, knowledge, feedback Tech talks, documentation, articles Mentorship program, tech talk events Code review, design review, coaching, pairing, shadowing Classes, codelabs Onboarding curriculum, teaching people to teach Code review, change review, design review Processes, linters, style guides Frameworks, culture change Delegating, sponsorship, cheerleading, ongoing support Sharing the spotlight, empowering your team Creating a culture of opportunity, watching with pride as your superstar junior colleagues change the world Advice Teaching Guardrails Opportunity The Sta ff Engineer’s Path
76. Learning is a bidirectional activity.
77. In short: What makes a Mature Engineer?
78. People you enjoy working with.
80. We lend cross-functional teams for product development.
82. konstantin.diener@cosee.biz Konstantin Diener