But if you strip away the title, the salary, and the years of experience, there’s one core skill that separates senior+ engineers from everyone else: reducing ambiguity. Everything else flows from that.
I think I’m a little hurt that managers can’t be included in this. I think the primary objective of every level below C-Suite is results. Those results may come from defined projects, but they could also come from fuzzy projects. Don’t leave me out just because I’m a manager.
ps as a rule of thumb. the title “Senior Engineer” seems to be a possibility as early as 5-7 years experience depending on how many company switches you have.
Quote Citation: Terrible Software, “What Actually Makes You Senior – Terrible Software”, 2025-11-25, https://terriblesoftware.org/2025/11/25/what-actually-makes-you-senior/