In the last 5 years, we’ve seen the discussion around seniority within the technology bubble take on a much larger proportion than it should have, and this discussion is largely due to people not understanding what a senior IT professional really does in their area.

In the distant past, seniority was attributed to how long a particular professional had been performing a particular function. This followed a very simple logic:

“Anyone who does something every day for 5 years will become an expert at it.”

This thinking was imported from other areas at a time when most IT managers were not technology people, but rather career managers.

With the evolution of project and product methodologies within IT teams, seniority became not only linked to time in the position but also to the size of the responsibility of that individual within their team, project, and in some cases even the company when it was a technology company. Then the logic became:

“This person is a senior engineer because, in addition to having a career time, they are also the person with the most responsibility on the team.”

At that time, the role of senior and technical leader was often confused because the senior ultimately helped the team deliver the product vision from a technical perspective.

When the technology industry saw a boom between 2012 and 2015, where the number of startups doubled, many companies with limited capital needed to attract talent, so they started offering open office spaces, video games, ping-pong tables, and especially positions. I myself saw many engineers leave established companies as juniors or intermediates and enter startups as seniors. Thus, we came to a point where logic was abandoned, and the famous phrase was adopted:

“Here, this person is a senior because he is the most senior in the entire team.”

As a result, we began to see people with only 2 years of experience in the IT field reaching the position of senior or technical leader without being exposed to complex environments, having to deal with changes in projects, or even having to deal with the consequences of what they implemented since most did not stay in the same company long enough since in a startup environment where capital is limited, the only way to increase salary significantly was to always be on the move.

So who is really a senior?

First, I would like to clarify that I am not talking about a position. You can be a senior, principal, super engineer, head of awesomeness; seniority is about who you are and not about your position.

Seniority is achieved through exposure to complex situations in your work environment, whether in the technical realm where you are challenged to create something to solve a problem, lead an important initiative for your team, mentor someone with less career time than you, or even deal with divergences in the work environment while maintaining calm and professionalism.

In the end, the position is just a reflection of the culture or need of that company. Seek seniority, not the position!