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What was your experience climbing the career ladder in tech? (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've seen people call themselves "senior" after 3 years on the job, other become CTOs in the same time, and others still have a senior title after 20(!) years in the industry yet have a fuckton of technical experience.

I've heard that they are all just titles and opinions from "if you don't have the technical skill you can't call yourself a senior", to "senior and staff are just a feeling, principal is the actual senior" and "staff? above senior? we call that manager".

What's your story? Is there a ladder? Do you feel like you belong on it? Where are you on it? Does it make sense? Did you see major bumps in salary? Did titles count at all?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have used the ladder to my advantage and advise others to do the same. It’s a game, you don’t win by not playing.

Definitely. I realised this too late because money wasn't important to me when all I wanted was an interesting challenge. Things changed when I heard how much the contracting company was hiring me out for (I was earning ~40% of that) and my rent doubled. Some countries are shit with titles though and the technical ladder ends at senior. To go higher means being coming a team leader in those countries. Thank you COVID for making it possible work remotely across borders. ~100% salary increase and new title.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Some countries are shit with titles though and the technical ladder ends at senior. To go higher means being coming a team leader in those countries.

/thread

At some point climbing the career ladder just means taking on vastly different responsibilities. If all you want to do is code, there isn't always the career ladder you might know from big tech. It just ends at senior.

Which doesn't mean that your career end there, your experience is just measured by years of experience and what you achieved, not some title.