This is Why I Didn’t Accept You as a Senior Software Engineer
An Alarming Trend in The Software Industry
Interviews for engineering positions are incredibly complicated and stressful, and I must applaud and appreciate all those who dare to be interviewed to fulfill their career dreams.
I’ve been interviewing engineers for different companies for the last few years, but lately, I’ve been turning down candidates like never before. I’m still using the same questions, nothing changed, the problem is that people have no idea about what it means to be a senior engineer, and these professionals are scarcer than ever.
Programming for 10 years doesn’t make you a senior engineer. It’s not about time.
Here’s my effort to summarize what it means to be a senior in the software development industry.
What is a Senior Engineer?
I asked ChatGPT for a generic description of what a Senior Software Engineer is and it nailed it:
Senior Engineers have a deep understanding of programming languages, software design principles, and development methodologies.
— ChatGPT before taking away our jobs.
That’s exactly the structure of a classic senior interview:
