[nextstepfan]

Actually the truth is that a lot of senior devs are not very good either, and have negative value. But they have an inflated value of themselves that does not reflect reality.

Pretty much all software projects seem to peak, and then decline in quality. There are only a handful of senior devs in the world who are actually good programmers.

[d675]

agreed. Of the two software teams I've been on everyone has been a "senior". Some were fresh seniors, and some more staff. I've always been the most junior on the team.

2 devs on teach team were truly 10x before AI; each has 15-25 yrs of exp on very small teams, great at so many things: code - infra - linux internals - networking - incredible debugging skills - keep up with good practices - great docs - and desire to do things the "right way" - IQ + horsepower.

The other good senior devs may do some of those things.

My title is Senior 2 b/c I negotiated a raise during interview, but am mid-level at best. Now laid off.

[zsoltkacsandi]

I agree. But it’s not about that they have inflated value but it comes down to how “modern” software producing organizations work. Product managers and C-level people do not know what they are doing either. Most people are part of the “software engineering” theater, recruiters are recruiting, manager are managing, software developers are developing software, all of them just to get paid or gain status in the org. Most of the values come from that handful people who can really deliver.

[whattheheckheck]

Yeah read Software and Mind by Andrei Sorin