True Seniority in Software Careers
The epiphany that leads to impact in your engineering career
I have often been in companies that tried to draw attention to tech talent. We all have heard it way too often: “The war for talent is over — the talents have won”.
In order to get some piece of the talent cake, companies try to create career ladders and different ways for people to follow a career path. In my experience, it often comes down to one or two questions: Where does the expert-path end, and where does management begin? Is it the same career path and how do they interact?
One remark upfront: I will not answer those questions. But along the discussions I’ve witnessed related to those questions, one thing always seemed very clear: At the beginning of a career it is about craftsmanship.
As Camille Fournier puts it in her article The Senior Shift:
You need to develop your best practices and have evidence that your code is of high quality. You build and eventually take ownership of bigger and more complex things, and show that you are capable, independent, and trustworthy.
And I strongly recommend reading her piece as it highlights one very central issue. She describes that from the bottom up things seem very straightforward. You stay for a certain amount of time, five to twenty years, sharpen your skills, exercise craftsmanship and become a proficient engineer. Naming blooms all sorts of blossoms, i.e. Senior Engineer, Staff Engineer, Senior Architect and many more.
Above those levels, or sometimes even in the upper levels of that scheme, companies are often referencing impact. The impact, that a person made on the organisation, business unit, product or other engineers. Often there are many pieces of training about leadership, and project management, as Camille Fournier puts it nicely: “Broader influencing skills”.
The challenge for people to move beyond the lower levels though is that
“…the real difference that companies are looking for is not that you are capable, but that you have demonstrated those capabilities by delivering impact.”
- Camille Fournier
And I could not agree more. Read up in The Senior Shift, on why the system is broken. It is very similar to entry-level positions looking for people with years of experience.
I want to build on her article. What makes true seniority? Is it demonstrated impact? How do people get there? There is a lot of talk about job crafting or faking it until you make it. While that might work, I’d like to advocate becoming what you want to be and not faking it.
Especially in software careers, I have seen that way too often and I’d like to highlight another model. In Tribal Leadership from Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright is another aspect highlighted, which is called the Epiphany. I believe that model serves perfectly to model how to make an impact and how to get to a place where your impact can move beyond the sum of all skills you accumulate, and beyond the sum of all skills of the people around you. Also moving away from the anti-pattern of heroism.
Tribal Leadership is a model that describes company culture in five stages, a rough overview:
Stage 1
- Theme: “Life sucks”
- Relationships: “Alienated”
- Behaviour: “Desparingly hostile”
Stage 2
- Theme: “My life sucks”
- Relationships: “Separate”
- Behaviour: “Apathetic victims”
Stage 3
- Theme: “I am great (and you are not)”
- Relationships: “Personal superiority”
- Behaviour: “Lone Warrior”
Stage 4
- Theme: “We are great”
- Relationships: “Stable partnership”
- Behaviour: “Tribal pride”
Stage 5
- Theme: “Life is great”
- Relationships: “Teams”
- Behaviour: “Innocent Wonderment”
The important part for getting into gaining impact is between Stage 3 and Stage 4. There are relevant changes to behaviour, perception and habits.
A relationship with other people in stage 3 is always a bi-directional relationship. And if there is a relationship with many people, it is many bi-directional relationships. After all, it is about lone warriors that win their battles alone.
In Stage 4 a triad is introduced. That relationship marks the first time a person expresses interest in the quality of a relationship between other people. Assume I observe a relationship between Alice and Bob and I sense that to be in not good shape. I will care about that relationship and express interest in fixing it, without influencing my relationship with either Alice or Bob. And they do the same to my relationships with Alice and so on. You probably get the picture. That is the first time a person cares about more than themselves, the impact they can make is now bigger than the sum of all individual contributions, and first teams can be formed successfully.
In order to get from stage 3 to stage 4 a person needs to win their battles. She needs to succeed as a lone warrior to get to the epiphany. To get to that epiphany those people realise:
- Nothing that matters is personal
- Stage 3 has no legacy
- Winning at stage 3 is a small win
- I now see I have been a manipulator, not a leader
- I’m tired: isn’t there some other game to play?
- I see myself through others’ eyes, and I don’t like what I see
The epiphany is realising that to make big gains, big impact, the way we engage others, how we work together and form relationships needs to change. It will allow us to set goals beyond what we can achieve alone. It helps people feel “I am because we are”.
Group victories at stage 3 never work, because people need to win on their own terms. Winning on a personal basis seems not enough, it is self-defeating. Winning together, at stage 4, as a team contrasts in enduring and satisfying results.
Stage 4 is the first stage where the more you give to others, the more you get back. The epiphany is seeing that. Seeing that the real goal is beyond personal success. It is about the impact of a bigger scale. The betterment of the tribe.
Now that might not directly better the career dilemma, I get that. But it highlights how we can find a way to move forward to create a true impact.
I believe true seniority is when people understand that the personal win, is no win at all. Writing better coder? Great. Having released a component successfully? Perfect.
But really amazing is, if you managed to help others achieve that, to get to a place where what you do creates an impact beyond personal success. Where you start following goals that do not just serve your own gains.
To me, true seniority in software careers is when we move beyond personal wins and create that impact that only can be achieved by bringing people together on a communicative and leadership level they have not experienced before.
Do you want to display true seniority? Get acquainted with the fact that you alone can only achieve that much. You need to make others better, you need to find activities that create enduring success for not just you.
Working on communication, delegation, project management, and systems theory. Training in those areas, improving interpersonal relationships and becoming a leader with its own flavour is what I think people need to work on (and yes, that list is neither complete nor incomplete).
A lot of engineers walk into the trap of perfecting their craftmanship and wondering why some areas of responsibility are sealed off to them.
Having a look into the path I’ve described above, might just unlock new levels for you.
