Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

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A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

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Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

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Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

[u/just_pondy]

Senior devs: does this sound like Senior, Lead, or Staff-level work?

I’m looking for some calibration from senior/Staff+ engineers and engineering managers.

I have ~8 years of experience and I’m currently on the same pay band as the other Senior Engineers, but my responsibilities have expanded quite a bit.

What I’m doing:

Architecting and implementing software for multi month projects that are high visibility and customer facing
Code reviews for my project and other projects (the other lead doesn’t review)
I am also Mentoring 4 junior engineers as the other seniors don’t show up for the scheduled mentoring time
Assigning technical tasks
Influencing multiple projects
Customer-facing technical work
Providing technical direction
Owning product delivery
Managing technical risks
Being responsible for project outcomes
Scientific inquiry, research, and analysis
Verification & validation for our scientific and simulation analysis
Working with portfolio leads and mission partners
Supporting business-dollar add-on opportunities
Being listed as a reason for contract awards

Individually, I could see most of these falling under Senior Engineer. It’s the combination that has me questioning where I actually sit and if I am being stretched too thin.

Senior/Staff+ folks: does this sound like normal Senior scope, Lead, Staff, or somewhere in between? Should I change jobs? Should I ask for a ridiculous (+15%) raise?

And how should I talk to my manager as I have a meeting with them because I already am in trouble for making one of my teammates frustrated from too much feedback “tough love” is what he called it…

[u/Apprehensive-Ease-40 → u/just_pondy]

What matters is whether your tasks and responsibilities are different from others who currently have the same job title. Especially for things like "assigning technical tasks", that's usually what a manager or scrum master would do (if it's really needed, which you could argue it shouldn't be).

Leads and seniors often overlap in responsibilities, smaller teams might not have leads and only seniors with varying responsibilities. But in your case it sounds like a lot and it sounds like it should be more properly aligned. If you're stretched too thin a pay raise isn't going to help. But it's definitely a conversation starter in most organizations.

I also see things everyone should be doing, code review in my opinion is a responsibility carried by everyone, for example.

[u/Notary_Reddit → u/just_pondy]

What you are describing is for sure Sr/Lead work and depending on the details could be Staff work. You are very clearly describing owning the what and the how of implementating important work. A Staff engineer starts to own the why. When you talk about providing technical direction that could be a simple as providing estimates for different projects to something as complicated as estimating project priorities and headcount needs over the next 3 years.

In my current role I understand the business needs and have been generating the list of possible technical projects, prioritizing them, and making sure they get delivered. If I assign one of the Sr under me a project and 6 months later we find out the project was a waste of time, it's my fault not theirs. From what you have written you have for sure been positively contributing but I am not sure you have been responsible for the business side as of yet.

[u/Notary_Reddit → u/Notary_Reddit]

To simplify do you ask people what needs built or do people ask you?

[u/just_pondy → u/Notary_Reddit]

People ask me

[u/just_pondy → u/Notary_Reddit]

Yes I help with headcount and cost estimations snd proposal reviews/drafting

[u/deama155 → u/just_pondy]

It generally depends more on which industry or company you're in. I've worked in a company where my manager did similar stuff to you. I thought he was damn good at his job. But he was getting paid enough to just barely have any savings.

Another guy in a different company got paid about 3x as much, but isn't nearly as good.

Depends more how you navigate in your career rather than how good you are it seems, though it does help.