Strength 1. Tech depth and delivery 2. Rejects hyperbolic discounting (i.e. forward-looking) 3. Expert time manager (e.g. limit unnecessary meetings, limit social media) 4. Grow others around you (improving team and allowing more delegation) Weakness 1. Overemphasizes delivery and tech depth 2. Conflates management and leadership 3. Unsustainable time management (i.e. working on nights/weekends)
I'm one of those lucky guys who got an incidental bump to senior - before I was ready. This video helped me validate that I'm doing ok (Ive been stressing a bit) and has helped outline where I should be focusing on improving. Thanks so much :)
This is great. Thank you. I was recently promoted to Senior Engineer and this bolsters my confidence to continue to push back against the constant onslaught of hyperbolic discounting from the POs, PMs, and stake holders.
Hey there - I'm just an incoming intern at Amazon; but it's great to see content that isn't focused on entry-level! I'll keep watching your videos as I move up the ranks :)
This is the kind of advice I wish I had 10-12 years ago. One thing I experienced, even as I became reached the senior level, is that sometimes there's no space to provide leadership, especially when there are older or more entrenched senior developers in the organization. In situations like that, the only way to break through is through "incidental" changes (people leaving the company or changing jobs completely.)
Im already a senior engineer, but man this hits close to home. I have fallen into the trap of overextending myself. Time management is a... growth area for me, and taking the "work longer hours" approach did indeed hurt my mental health. The stress lead to frustration and bitterness when given deadlines that were only possible by incurring extensive technical debt that was clear would not be resolved prior to beginning the next phase. Which would bake the poor design choices into the system so deeply that I would no longer even want my name attached to the project. The only way to avoid it (as far as I could tell) was to work long nights and weekends to ensure that things were implemented correctly without slipping the deadlines. I consider this sort of thing a common occupational hazard in our field, and a rite of passage to some degree. But when you realize that it is the norm rather than the exception, that is a sure sign of bad management and a recipe for burnout and an unhealthy dev team.
Good point. Dealing with this daily and it’s tricky. What I decided to do is: working as much as I find enjoyable but be thoughtful of what my contribution is doing. So when I’m not super excited about a task I’ll still shoot to contribute a lot but with less. How exactly depend on the problem.
Man, you sound like a person who goes to therapy and reflect about things from your career and human behavior in a practical way beyond the tech bubble. You inspire me. Thumbs up for the content and thoughtful advices! 💖
You must be a very busy man, but this content is phenomenal. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. I'm about 4 years into my career and just started thinking about principle and staff roles. I feel behind but over the next year, I'll make the effort to change my mentality. Thanks again.
Excellent video explaining the difference between leaders and managers: leaders set direction, managers are concerned with execution. The summary at 10:42 lists 4 universal characteristics of senior engineers. The three things preventing promotion to senior are: * focusing too much on delivery and tech depth * conflating leadership with management * unsustainable time management (by putting in more hours instead of mentoring others) Thank you!💯
As someone stepping up in to a mid range role, this is some very helpful content on knowing what things can help me grow as a leader, to then help my team and future teams. Love your channel.
What a fantastic video. I am less than one year into my software engineering journey, and feel I will look back at this video in years to come and appreciate the advice time and time again. Thanks!
WoW this is 🔥 I feel like the matrix code was suddenly revealed to me 😎I’ve been studying full-time the last few weeks getting ready to get back in the job hunt and have been deeply curious on if I was ready for Senior, and the example dialogues while hilarious are extremely enlightening. Until now I’ve completely glazed over the behavioral questions as semi-significant but suddenly I feel like that’s EXACTLY the part I should be focusing on as the answer will clearly confess mental attributes that map to capability. “Technical Impact” has always been the Kool-Aid every other UA-camr tries to sell you, but “Team-Impact”, and “Cross-company impact” makes so much sense as a focus point. Major thanks for this. Steve, more behavioral scenarios I think it would be HUGE value-add.
Hey Meta, do you have any tips for people who are Staff Engs? 1) How do you empower others to take ownership of projects or help maintain projects that you might have initially started? 2) How do you stop doing everything and start asking for help? (That grit and self-reliance might have gotten you there) 3) Do you think being staff+ and having 2 or fewer reports is a good way to scale your work? 4) Why choose the staff+ IC route over the management one? 5) What are some things you should stop doing once you reach Staff+? 6) Are there trade-offs you have to make the higher up you go? Does WLB have to suffer?
1. If the project is framed an opportunity, and not just more work, I think you'll find folks thats need to grow in the areas that the project provides easily. 2. You need to draw boundaries and prioritize. If you are keeping something alive that requires a team of people to do well, sometimes you need to remove yourself because something more important will suffer. Let the wheel get squeaky, it's the one that gets the grease. 3. I wouldn't know. 4. Because people management is not what I want to do at this point. 5. Focus on the things you want to do and ruthlessly and unapologetically prioritize. You can't do the stuff you need to do if you are doing stuff that you shouldn't. 6. Yes but I don't let my WLB suffer. You should focus on 1-3 things during a week on top of your obligations you can't get out of. If you get efficient you can do so much more with less time with no loss of fidelity. My goal this year is to be 2x more productive without working more. It may seem impossible but I'm tracking well so far.
@@ALifeEngineered 1) How are you tracking your output / projects / investment in others for growing them?? Any video planned for this soon? 2) If you are faced with a situation where you want others to pick something or get incorporated with something, but since official designation/authority is not there with you right now, how do you go about it? For a very real example, one of my friend has been working on one project for a long time, and now their manager's feedback is for them to grow in other areas as well. However, whenever they try to delegate some menial tasks of this project to others, so they also have an understanding of the project, their manager asks them to do it instead because "it'll only be 15 minutes for you", and possibly due to these kind of responses, the other team members also push back on any delegation or ideas they share. What to do in this type of situation? Thanks.
I'm already a Senior Engineer, but I can definitely get better at promoting other developers' skills. I oftentimes will take on more tasks because I can get them done quicker, but am quickly realizing the poor scalability of that. Nice video!
This is EXACTLY the kind of advise I've been looking for. Subscribed! Would love to see more content in the future about small daily steps low-level engineers can take towards building their experience and skills towards seniority/tech leadership.
Your content it amazing. You are right, there aren't any videos on youtube that teach this stuff and engineers end up learning by making many mistakes which costs time. Please keep up the good work.
Man, found you doing random search, trying to filter between all the content on cracking the interview at FAANG companies. But now inside Amazon I found super helpful this advice. I hope you can find the time to keep the content!
Always great content! I like how you take both general recommendations AND give a concrete example of what that may look like. I think what would help even more is some visuals (I'm biased since I'm a visual learner). It would really help drive your points and examples home.
I’m so close to getting to senior. Thanks for making this video, it will help me phrase some things in my 1 on 1s with my manager. Super practical, actionable advice. Thanks for not just having platitudes
Its 2AM in czech republic here. And I just struck gold. This content is just out of this world. Liked. Subscribed. Added video to rewatch it later again. Great job. Please do some course or write a book :D
This is the first UA-cam channel I've watched where I subscribed after only watching one of their videos. This was such sound, actionable advice that I haven't seen elsewhere. Looking forward to watching your other videos @Meta.
Wow spot on with your assertion that UA-cam is chock full with advice for how to become an entry level engineer but there’s very little about how to progress once there. I’ve been a de facto senior engineer for 3 years because I’m the most senior one at my startup, but I have no guidance on how to actually become senior level at a big company. Just found your channel and videos like this are exactly what I’ve been needing to take the next step in my career.
That's an golden piece of advice. High quality content, thank you for sharing this. Means so much for all of us and this is what makes the dev community awesome. Subscribed!
Thanks for the amazing video and tips ! I was really needing those advice's i'm trying to pass to this next level as a engineer to senior and your thoughts helped a lot !
I'm the 1000th like on this video :) Thank you for the advice, you are talking directly to me, I'm an SDE2 at Amazon, still new to the company but good to hear all the advices early on, thank you!
This is awesome not just for Tech but any career in general. I should be able to accurately guesstimate your title simply by the way you carry yourself and discuss topics in a meeting; as well as the amount of positive pull you generate in the board room
I'm really grateful that you're producing these videos. UA-cam is full of beginner level videos, but it's awesome to hear your perspective on how I can further my career and startup.
As someone moving from Sr/Principle to Management, I can attest that this is exactly what we are looking for. Experience is another important point but maybe it shouldn't need to be said since he all but covered this in "technically deep and delivers".
The overall idea sounds reasonable, but the example at 2:59 is a bad solution imho. An asynchronous API can usually be easily implemented on top of the synchronous one as a 'wrapper' around the synchronous API. Such a solution provides a somewhat 'best of both worlds' solution without introducing additional risk into the project near the deadline. You get both APIs, clients who commited to the synchronous API can use it until they cutover to the async one at an appropriate time.
It works sometimes. If your asynchronous API always blocks on the same set of downstream synchronous calls you may just have a synchronous call with more steps.
Absolute GEM here! Thank you for the fantastic advice. I am at a level in my career where things are taking a turn towards senior/lead territory. In fact, I am acting as Lead currently. However, there are obvious skillsets that I'm lacking .. and the main ones, you have touched upon here! I have a ton of self-reflection to do after watching this. Much appreciated 🙏
1. Leadership vs. Management: Senior developers are considered leaders, not managers. They set direction and rally their team toward a common goal. Leadership involves thinking about the long-term consequences of actions and communicating a steady state for systems that's healthy. 2. Technical Depth: While technical expertise is crucial, it's not the only requirement. Senior engineers must also demonstrate leadership qualities, such as setting direction and making decisions that benefit the team in the long term. 3. Time Management: Senior engineers need to find time to think about the future and make strategic decisions. This requires extracting more time from existing working hours rather than relying on nights and weekends, which can lead to burnout. 4. Growing Others: Senior engineers should focus on growing others around them, delegating tasks, and empowering team members. This not only helps free up their own bandwidth but also prepares others to take on higher-level responsibilities. 5. Rejecting Hyperbolic Discounting: This means resisting the temptation to prioritize immediate benefits over long-term gains. Senior engineers should think about maximizing the benefits of their team's actions over a longer time horizon.
this is great video for me. I think I should have break more often after 2 years super hard work with very few days off at the weekend, but my job's still bullshit.
Watched (multiple times) and loved all your videos, very informative and thought provoking. I really hope you make more of these sharing anything about engineering, career, or life advice.
Great advice, especially the growing others part. I came here ready to give a sarcastic response that the senior above me was the thing preventing me from attaining the next level lol, but this video was actually pretty solid.
Great advice for all. I’m not SE but looking for a job in customer relations/sales. The job I’m looking for in mid level manager. While I had very senior manager roles before, this will be a new industry and skillset. Your videos gave me some good ideas on now I should position myself and what kind of stories I should prepare. Your content is gold and should not be compared to “Tech Lead”, whom I followed for several months before deciding he was a blowhard. 😊. Hope you will do more videos.
Really thoughtful breakdown of what it takes to be a senior. I’m not a SWE but I would say the same general principles apply to nearly all senior leadership roles. Thanks for taking time to lay this out for folks.
Please keep on making these videos. My father has over 35 years in the software industry and you sound just like him! So rare to see someone who really have a different perspective making videos like this, all of the video that I see are just the same. One lesson learned from my old man: the technical part is NOT the most important one, learn to improve your other skills as well... awesome video :)
There are a lot of things I can't do so I often think I can't get to senior...but you hit something on the head, the way you carry yourself and how you work is more important than what you can or can't do technically. I have guys who would probably be inclined to say they'd have thought I was senior, despite an admin error that caused my assigned level to be incorrect. This week I got a little low and decided to pull back on doing what I do best but I see that was to my own detriment. I think your video saved me from looking worse overall but also made me realise my goals aren't as far off as I think...
As an ordinary non lead, non principle non senior engineer I am expected to work on tickets that I was assigned to. How can I make more time for deep analysis in this case? I don’t have any direct reports. I can’t just delegate my tickets to another ordinary developer because that would result in me not doing what is expected of me
Deep analysis of a ticket should lead addressing the root-cause of a large set of issues. If you are closing tickets that just pop up again in a slightly different form are you really working on a ticket? If you don't have time to do the deep dive that will drive the issue to ground, talk to your manager to let them know you are trying to solve the bigger problem. You shouldn't delegate this work, writing code that eliminates a large set of pernicious tickets is a really strong data point that you are really are operating at the senior engineer level.
Super glad I found your channel early in my software engineering career. Thank you for doing this Meta! What are your thoughts on creating models of your team’s code base as a new member to increase visibility?
The things you put light on are tremendously important for a developer career. Some times is painful to hear some of the truth bombs you drop tho. Please keep doing it.
Thank you so much for this informational and to the point video. Its really going to help me and many other folks who look forward to growing in life professionally. Subscribed as well.
Love your content Steve, I hope you have peace. You know I feel that the challenges inside a tech company are too different from those outside in the wild society. Engineers often get locked in that culture and situation and their social and financial skills do not grow as well as their technical and professional skills. I will be happy to listen to this type of concept too.
2nd question - Do you have advice on how to sell your ideas to leadership? I know they care about different things from developers, but I find it hard to hit their sweet point. Maybe I'm missing their perspectives? A video would be great ☺️
First rule of selling is understanding what the buyer needs. What do your leaders care about and tailor your message to that. If you don’t know what they want then start there. I’ve found often engineering management will have a simple set of desires - lowering costs, delivering on time, staffing (hiring, attrition), etc. They often aren’t interested in big projects unless the benefits are absolutely clear. If you are having problems getting buy-in make sure you are upfront about what the benefits are and why it’s worth the expense, opportunity costs are real and the numbers are big.
Incredibly practical and helpful content, thanks for sharing the advice! I especially love how you carry yourself as you talk and the crispiness you articulate. Do you have advice on how to be a more concise and sharper communicator like you? I often find myself going too lengthy and not as organized when I talk as I think, e.g. dumping too many details at once, attempting to immediately elaborate what I said with detailed examples. What's a good balance between making my points strong vs. making sure the points are accurately conveyed? Thanks in advance!
It is a skill you learn over time. Step one is realizing you have an issue. Second is to understand you are forcing the listener to do a lot of work filtering the noise from the signal. This trains people to not seek your opinion because it’s too much work. Practice writing TL;DRs and trust if more details are necessary you can provide them on demand.
The reason managers don't is because their incentives don't always line up with yours. If you had to choose between a good senior engineer and a good front-line manager (obviously nobody has this choice) I would always choose the dev because they can lead a team AND build things.
Could you do a video on what skills generally junior engineer need to improve on or pay attention to get promoted to a midlevel? Or maybe a breakdown of the skills needed at each engineering level (junior, midlevel, senior, principal, management)?
Isn't the advice on hyperbolic discounting tailored for those working on established projects? I'd imagine senior engineers working in startups would have different views on that?
Strength
1. Tech depth and delivery
2. Rejects hyperbolic discounting (i.e. forward-looking)
3. Expert time manager (e.g. limit unnecessary meetings, limit social media)
4. Grow others around you (improving team and allowing more delegation)
Weakness
1. Overemphasizes delivery and tech depth
2. Conflates management and leadership
3. Unsustainable time management (i.e. working on nights/weekends)
10+ years of developer, team, and management experience distilled into 12 minutes and laid out comprehensively. Thanks for sharing this gold.
Ahhhhh, I've been avoiding moving up to the next level. Thanks for making this process so easy to understand that I have no excuse!
I'm one of those lucky guys who got an incidental bump to senior - before I was ready. This video helped me validate that I'm doing ok (Ive been stressing a bit) and has helped outline where I should be focusing on improving. Thanks so much :)
This is great. Thank you. I was recently promoted to Senior Engineer and this bolsters my confidence to continue to push back against the constant onslaught of hyperbolic discounting from the POs, PMs, and stake holders.
Congrats on promotion!
Hey there - I'm just an incoming intern at Amazon; but it's great to see content that isn't focused on entry-level! I'll keep watching your videos as I move up the ranks :)
Wow! Real Musikage!
This is the kind of advice I wish I had 10-12 years ago. One thing I experienced, even as I became reached the senior level, is that sometimes there's no space to provide leadership, especially when there are older or more entrenched senior developers in the organization. In situations like that, the only way to break through is through "incidental" changes (people leaving the company or changing jobs completely.)
More entrenched seniors have more context that junior can surpassing some hard work
Im already a senior engineer, but man this hits close to home. I have fallen into the trap of overextending myself. Time management is a... growth area for me, and taking the "work longer hours" approach did indeed hurt my mental health. The stress lead to frustration and bitterness when given deadlines that were only possible by incurring extensive technical debt that was clear would not be resolved prior to beginning the next phase. Which would bake the poor design choices into the system so deeply that I would no longer even want my name attached to the project. The only way to avoid it (as far as I could tell) was to work long nights and weekends to ensure that things were implemented correctly without slipping the deadlines.
I consider this sort of thing a common occupational hazard in our field, and a rite of passage to some degree. But when you realize that it is the norm rather than the exception, that is a sure sign of bad management and a recipe for burnout and an unhealthy dev team.
Good point. Dealing with this daily and it’s tricky. What I decided to do is: working as much as I find enjoyable but be thoughtful of what my contribution is doing. So when I’m not super excited about a task I’ll still shoot to contribute a lot but with less. How exactly depend on the problem.
Thanks for share. I think solution is continue the grind BUT pick your battle. Consider ROI
Man, you sound like a person who goes to therapy and reflect about things from your career and human behavior in a practical way beyond the tech bubble.
You inspire me. Thumbs up for the content and thoughtful advices! 💖
Wait he's so wholesome, especially contrasting with a few of the tech UA-camrs, won't name any names here
You must be a very busy man, but this content is phenomenal. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. I'm about 4 years into my career and just started thinking about principle and staff roles. I feel behind but over the next year, I'll make the effort to change my mentality. Thanks again.
Excellent video explaining the difference between leaders and managers: leaders set direction, managers are concerned with execution.
The summary at 10:42 lists 4 universal characteristics of senior engineers. The three things preventing promotion to senior are:
* focusing too much on delivery and tech depth
* conflating leadership with management
* unsustainable time management (by putting in more hours instead of mentoring others)
Thank you!💯
As someone stepping up in to a mid range role, this is some very helpful content on knowing what things can help me grow as a leader, to then help my team and future teams.
Love your channel.
What a fantastic video. I am less than one year into my software engineering journey, and feel I will look back at this video in years to come and appreciate the advice time and time again. Thanks!
I just started as an entry level SDE and feel like I have struck gold by coming across your videos. Thank you for all of the insight!
WoW this is 🔥 I feel like the matrix code was suddenly revealed to me 😎I’ve been studying full-time the last few weeks getting ready to get back in the job hunt and have been deeply curious on if I was ready for Senior, and the example dialogues while hilarious are extremely enlightening. Until now I’ve completely glazed over the behavioral questions as semi-significant but suddenly I feel like that’s EXACTLY the part I should be focusing on as the answer will clearly confess mental attributes that map to capability. “Technical Impact” has always been the Kool-Aid every other UA-camr tries to sell you, but “Team-Impact”, and “Cross-company impact” makes so much sense as a focus point. Major thanks for this.
Steve, more behavioral scenarios I think it would be HUGE value-add.
Hey Meta, do you have any tips for people who are Staff Engs?
1) How do you empower others to take ownership of projects or help maintain projects that you might have initially started?
2) How do you stop doing everything and start asking for help? (That grit and self-reliance might have gotten you there)
3) Do you think being staff+ and having 2 or fewer reports is a good way to scale your work?
4) Why choose the staff+ IC route over the management one?
5) What are some things you should stop doing once you reach Staff+?
6) Are there trade-offs you have to make the higher up you go? Does WLB have to suffer?
1. If the project is framed an opportunity, and not just more work, I think you'll find folks thats need to grow in the areas that the project provides easily.
2. You need to draw boundaries and prioritize. If you are keeping something alive that requires a team of people to do well, sometimes you need to remove yourself because something more important will suffer. Let the wheel get squeaky, it's the one that gets the grease.
3. I wouldn't know.
4. Because people management is not what I want to do at this point.
5. Focus on the things you want to do and ruthlessly and unapologetically prioritize. You can't do the stuff you need to do if you are doing stuff that you shouldn't.
6. Yes but I don't let my WLB suffer. You should focus on 1-3 things during a week on top of your obligations you can't get out of. If you get efficient you can do so much more with less time with no loss of fidelity. My goal this year is to be 2x more productive without working more. It may seem impossible but I'm tracking well so far.
@@ALifeEngineered for 6, what is your metric for productivity?
@@ALifeEngineered
1) How are you tracking your output / projects / investment in others for growing them?? Any video planned for this soon?
2) If you are faced with a situation where you want others to pick something or get incorporated with something, but since official designation/authority is not there with you right now, how do you go about it?
For a very real example, one of my friend has been working on one project for a long time, and now their manager's feedback is for them to grow in other areas as well. However, whenever they try to delegate some menial tasks of this project to others, so they also have an understanding of the project, their manager asks them to do it instead because "it'll only be 15 minutes for you", and possibly due to these kind of responses, the other team members also push back on any delegation or ideas they share. What to do in this type of situation?
Thanks.
Your way of speaking is kinda hypnotizing. I didn't even notice when these 11 minutes had passed. And stuff you talked about was really helpful
I'm already a Senior Engineer, but I can definitely get better at promoting other developers' skills. I oftentimes will take on more tasks because I can get them done quicker, but am quickly realizing the poor scalability of that.
Nice video!
UA-cam recommendation realized I am done with entertainment and I get these kinds of video, great stuff. Thanks for your time
This channel is going to blow up really fast!
Thanks for the great advice. Reminds me of the quote, "The best things in life are almost always free."
What an excellent video. Clear, concise, and incredibly insightful. Outstanding.
This is EXACTLY the kind of advise I've been looking for. Subscribed! Would love to see more content in the future about small daily steps low-level engineers can take towards building their experience and skills towards seniority/tech leadership.
Your content it amazing. You are right, there aren't any videos on youtube that teach this stuff and engineers end up learning by making many mistakes which costs time.
Please keep up the good work.
Man, found you doing random search, trying to filter between all the content on cracking the interview at FAANG companies. But now inside Amazon I found super helpful this advice. I hope you can find the time to keep the content!
Always great content! I like how you take both general recommendations AND give a concrete example of what that may look like. I think what would help even more is some visuals (I'm biased since I'm a visual learner). It would really help drive your points and examples home.
I’m so close to getting to senior. Thanks for making this video, it will help me phrase some things in my 1 on 1s with my manager. Super practical, actionable advice. Thanks for not just having platitudes
Its 2AM in czech republic here. And I just struck gold. This content is just out of this world. Liked. Subscribed. Added video to rewatch it later again. Great job. Please do some course or write a book :D
Agree completely. Optimize. Rutlhless time efficiency and ensuring you grow others.
I seldom engage, subscribe, like and comment. Your content's delivery and depth have been greatly appreciated. Thank you and please keep going.
This is the first UA-cam channel I've watched where I subscribed after only watching one of their videos. This was such sound, actionable advice that I haven't seen elsewhere. Looking forward to watching your other videos @Meta.
Thanks for providing such valuable info and advice Meta! Excited for more vids to come!
Wow spot on with your assertion that UA-cam is chock full with advice for how to become an entry level engineer but there’s very little about how to progress once there. I’ve been a de facto senior engineer for 3 years because I’m the most senior one at my startup, but I have no guidance on how to actually become senior level at a big company. Just found your channel and videos like this are exactly what I’ve been needing to take the next step in my career.
That's an golden piece of advice. High quality content, thank you for sharing this. Means so much for all of us and this is what makes the dev community awesome. Subscribed!
I didnt know that these are skills needed to become a senior. Thanks Im happy that you made this vid.
Great video. Thanks. Follow up - how do we make sure that the effort we are putting to grow others are getting observed and credited to us?
Where'd you go Meta? Best prep channel out there!
Thanks for the amazing video and tips ! I was really needing those advice's i'm trying to pass to this next level as a engineer to senior and your thoughts helped a lot !
I'm the 1000th like on this video :) Thank you for the advice, you are talking directly to me, I'm an SDE2 at Amazon, still new to the company but good to hear all the advices early on, thank you!
This is awesome not just for Tech but any career in general. I should be able to accurately guesstimate your title simply by the way you carry yourself and discuss topics in a meeting; as well as the amount of positive pull you generate in the board room
can you share how to be good/excellent at system design?
This was super helpful, I know some of these things but I used to do more of burning more of my personal time and less of enabling others
For a split second, I looked at the below section to check which premium service I bought to get this high quality content
I am so glad I found your video. This is exactly what I need right now! Thank you!!!
I'm really grateful that you're producing these videos.
UA-cam is full of beginner level videos, but it's awesome to hear your perspective on how I can further my career and startup.
As someone moving from Sr/Principle to Management, I can attest that this is exactly what we are looking for. Experience is another important point but maybe it shouldn't need to be said since he all but covered this in "technically deep and delivers".
Just found this channel. Senior scientist/ director. While the discipline differs - the unspoken truths shared here are accurate. Well done and thanks
The overall idea sounds reasonable, but the example at 2:59 is a bad solution imho. An asynchronous API can usually be easily implemented on top of the synchronous one as a 'wrapper' around the synchronous API. Such a solution provides a somewhat 'best of both worlds' solution without introducing additional risk into the project near the deadline. You get both APIs, clients who commited to the synchronous API can use it until they cutover to the async one at an appropriate time.
It works sometimes. If your asynchronous API always blocks on the same set of downstream synchronous calls you may just have a synchronous call with more steps.
Absolute GEM here! Thank you for the fantastic advice. I am at a level in my career where things are taking a turn towards senior/lead territory. In fact, I am acting as Lead currently. However, there are obvious skillsets that I'm lacking .. and the main ones, you have touched upon here! I have a ton of self-reflection to do after watching this. Much appreciated 🙏
Dude, I have been looking for this content on UA-cam forever. Thank you!
I'm happy I found your channel just exactly when I need it the most.
Thank you for such divergent but extremely valuable content
1. Leadership vs. Management: Senior developers are considered leaders, not managers. They set direction and rally their team toward a common goal. Leadership involves thinking about the long-term consequences of actions and communicating a steady state for systems that's healthy.
2. Technical Depth: While technical expertise is crucial, it's not the only requirement. Senior engineers must also demonstrate leadership qualities, such as setting direction and making decisions that benefit the team in the long term.
3. Time Management: Senior engineers need to find time to think about the future and make strategic decisions. This requires extracting more time from existing working hours rather than relying on nights and weekends, which can lead to burnout.
4. Growing Others: Senior engineers should focus on growing others around them, delegating tasks, and empowering team members. This not only helps free up their own bandwidth but also prepares others to take on higher-level responsibilities.
5. Rejecting Hyperbolic Discounting: This means resisting the temptation to prioritize immediate benefits over long-term gains. Senior engineers should think about maximizing the benefits of their team's actions over a longer time horizon.
this is great video for me. I think I should have break more often after 2 years super hard work with very few days off at the weekend, but my job's still bullshit.
Thanks
I just started at Booz Allen hamilton as backend engineer
It is been 4 months now
Thanks
Watched (multiple times) and loved all your videos, very informative and thought provoking.
I really hope you make more of these sharing anything about engineering, career, or life advice.
Great advice, especially the growing others part. I came here ready to give a sarcastic response that the senior above me was the thing preventing me from attaining the next level lol, but this video was actually pretty solid.
Love your videos! So thankful that I am able to come across your advices and the consequences of hyperbolic discounting!
Hello Greetings from Mexico, I saw all your videos and I think you are a very intelligent and wise person, thanks for all the advice!
This is the best senior engineer advice I have seen around!!!
So happy I stumbled upon this video and your channel! Thanks for the great content!
@A Life Engineered I have one question: What do you mean by "Communicate a steady state for systems"? Thanks for your videos!
Great advice for all. I’m not SE but looking for a job in customer relations/sales. The job I’m looking for in mid level manager. While I had very senior manager roles before, this will be a new industry and skillset. Your videos gave me some good ideas on now I should position myself and what kind of stories I should prepare. Your content is gold and should not be compared to “Tech Lead”, whom I followed for several months before deciding he was a blowhard. 😊. Hope you will do more videos.
was that a subtle Tech Lead reference 😂
For someone who’s curious it’s at 8:40
@@JinayShah I thought its was going to be a positive reference Lol fuck the tech lead
@@JinayShah also 0:12
"How to become a senior developer (as a millionaire)"
It was not, obviously
Really thoughtful breakdown of what it takes to be a senior. I’m not a SWE but I would say the same general principles apply to nearly all senior leadership roles. Thanks for taking time to lay this out for folks.
What a nice content and suit my need exactly. Look forward to new videos about how senior developers approach difficult tasks.
Thank you. As someone in the path to senior engineer this is really helpful
Please keep on making these videos. My father has over 35 years in the software industry and you sound just like him! So rare to see someone who really have a different perspective making videos like this, all of the video that I see are just the same. One lesson learned from my old man: the technical part is NOT the most important one, learn to improve your other skills as well... awesome video :)
There's so much wisdom in these 11 minutes. Thank you Meta.
There are a lot of things I can't do so I often think I can't get to senior...but you hit something on the head, the way you carry yourself and how you work is more important than what you can or can't do technically. I have guys who would probably be inclined to say they'd have thought I was senior, despite an admin error that caused my assigned level to be incorrect. This week I got a little low and decided to pull back on doing what I do best but I see that was to my own detriment. I think your video saved me from looking worse overall but also made me realise my goals aren't as far off as I think...
This video is spot on. I would force all Senior devs at Microsoft to watch this....
Thank you. Your video teaches me a lot for the senior level
As an ordinary non lead, non principle non senior engineer I am expected to work on tickets that I was assigned to. How can I make more time for deep analysis in this case? I don’t have any direct reports. I can’t just delegate my tickets to another ordinary developer because that would result
in me not doing what is expected of me
Deep analysis of a ticket should lead addressing the root-cause of a large set of issues. If you are closing tickets that just pop up again in a slightly different form are you really working on a ticket? If you don't have time to do the deep dive that will drive the issue to ground, talk to your manager to let them know you are trying to solve the bigger problem. You shouldn't delegate this work, writing code that eliminates a large set of pernicious tickets is a really strong data point that you are really are operating at the senior engineer level.
Sde stands for someone who does everything. Leadership and project planning is a big part of being a senior.
Super glad I found your channel early in my software engineering career. Thank you for doing this Meta! What are your thoughts on creating models of your team’s code base as a new member to increase visibility?
Dude, thanks so much for the content! That’s exactly what Ive been searching for in the last couple months.
The things you put light on are tremendously important for a developer career. Some times is painful to hear some of the truth bombs you drop tho. Please keep doing it.
Thank you so much for this informational and to the point video. Its really going to help me and many other folks who look forward to growing in life professionally. Subscribed as well.
Very nice wall of Whisky, I see a few bottle from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Sláinte!
Literally priceless channel.
Dang it, this video is a must-have. This channel will become gold/big soon.
Wow the advice on making more time by making others better is gold!
wow, all this advices are gold, thanks for sharing, it helps me understand my team a lot
Love your content Steve, I hope you have peace. You know I feel that the challenges inside a tech company are too different from those outside in the wild society. Engineers often get locked in that culture and situation and their social and financial skills do not grow as well as their technical and professional skills. I will be happy to listen to this type of concept too.
amazing content, thank you so much man. I’m on my first year as a junior dev. Looking forward to more videos from you!
Much needed and scarce content for new software developers
Thanks! Such a good advice. :) Will be promoted to a lead engineer position shortly.
I could listen to this guy forever.
You are much needed. Thank you for this.
Great advice! Really puts into perspective what it takes to get to get to a senior position, I particularly liked the discussion about the pitfalls.
Love your content man!! Great new channel to binge. I already know you're gonna blow up 🚀
2nd question - Do you have advice on how to sell your ideas to leadership? I know they care about different things from developers, but I find it hard to hit their sweet point. Maybe I'm missing their perspectives? A video would be great ☺️
First rule of selling is understanding what the buyer needs. What do your leaders care about and tailor your message to that. If you don’t know what they want then start there. I’ve found often engineering management will have a simple set of desires - lowering costs, delivering on time, staffing (hiring, attrition), etc. They often aren’t interested in big projects unless the benefits are absolutely clear. If you are having problems getting buy-in make sure you are upfront about what the benefits are and why it’s worth the expense, opportunity costs are real and the numbers are big.
Incredibly practical and helpful content, thanks for sharing the advice! I especially love how you carry yourself as you talk and the crispiness you articulate. Do you have advice on how to be a more concise and sharper communicator like you? I often find myself going too lengthy and not as organized when I talk as I think, e.g. dumping too many details at once, attempting to immediately elaborate what I said with detailed examples. What's a good balance between making my points strong vs. making sure the points are accurately conveyed? Thanks in advance!
It is a skill you learn over time. Step one is realizing you have an issue. Second is to understand you are forcing the listener to do a lot of work filtering the noise from the signal. This trains people to not seek your opinion because it’s too much work. Practice writing TL;DRs and trust if more details are necessary you can provide them on demand.
This video is so awesome because I don’t see that many managers / coaches or seniors can tell me what exactly to do
The reason managers don't is because their incentives don't always line up with yours. If you had to choose between a good senior engineer and a good front-line manager (obviously nobody has this choice) I would always choose the dev because they can lead a team AND build things.
Thanks a lot. Please can you share a video on a popular question. How do you scale a software with 1k users to 1m users
I recently found out just how much leadership it takes! Great content
Could you do a video on what skills generally junior engineer need to improve on or pay attention to get promoted to a midlevel? Or maybe a breakdown of the skills needed at each engineering level (junior, midlevel, senior, principal, management)?
For junior engineers just focus on the quality of your work. Every pull request or check-in is sacred and should represent the best you can do.
Isn't the advice on hyperbolic discounting tailored for those working on established projects? I'd imagine senior engineers working in startups would have different views on that?
Absolutely, no need to think about the future if the company won't survive in for 6 months without a release.
The one time youtube has recommended something life changing to me thanks @Meta for your brilliant insights
Wonderful advice would you mind doing a video from SSE to SSE level two.
This video was extremely helpful! Thank you 🙏
This is what we badly needed. God bless UA-cam algorithm for suggesting your channel to me