
Ask HN: How do I appear more senior in a field dominated by older professionals - throwaway7_16
I am 30 years old working in a field where I am consulting for a SaaS product that is used heavily by Fortune 500 companies.<p>In my current company, I am the youngest engineer but have a title of senior engineer because of my technical chops.<p>I made the mistake of recommending process improvements early on when I joined; however, because my recommendations weren&#x27;t implemented, it created scenarios where engineers had to email code to each other to track changes.<p>I recently applied and interviewed for another job and the feedback I was given was that the people that I interviewed with liked me but felt like they would want to add another engineer that was more &quot;senior&quot; than me so that they would have a go to person for the product that I consult for.<p>I feel as though I should make a career change but I want to make improve how people use the SaaS product and try to introduce new ways to automate and add more value for customers that use this product.<p>My greatest strength is that I can learn new technology very easily and that I try to follow industry best practices  where I can.<p>I know that I want a change, but not sure if it&#x27;s better to start over or do something new; has anyone else faced this situation before?
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itamarst
You can imagine a skill gradation of:

1\. Follow implementation instructions from someone else. I.e. new programmer
straight out of school.

2\. Solve problems presented by someone else. They figure out the task, you
figure out how to implement it.

3\. Identify problems, and more broadly figure out what to do based on team
goals.

Some possibilities:

A. You're in level 2, they wanted level 3. Solution: find a job elsewhere, and
meanwhile up your skills (a lot of it is mindset, e.g.
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/02/11/working-long-
hours/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/02/11/working-long-hours/))

B. You're level 3, but you presented yourself as a level 2. In this case you
want to emphasize (in resume, interviews, etc.) that you are able to identify
needs independently. It's a subtle difference, "I solved this problem where
company was losing money" vs "I identified that the company was losing money,
came up with solution, implemented it."

C. Like B, but you're underrepresented minority and facing (possibly
unconscious) bias so you have to work even harder to demonstrate your skill
level.

Happy to discuss in more detail off of HN - email me at
itamar@codewithoutrules.com

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throwaway7_16
Either B or C... never thought of it that way, pretty interesting breakdown.
Thanks for the insight...

------
wallflower
To start, read this excellent article about what a senior engineer really is:

[https://allarsblog.com/2018/03/16/confessions-of-an-
unreal-e...](https://allarsblog.com/2018/03/16/confessions-of-an-unreal-
engine-4-engineering-firefighter/)

