Not senior

For a year or two I was actively chasing a “senior“ engineer promotion.

In that time I've posed the same questions at each and every one-on-one I had with a manager:

• What am I doing wrong
• What should I be doing more
• Where do I stand on the ladder

Receiving variations of the same feedback:

• Fuck around too much
• Make a greater impact
• You meet most of the written criteria for the senior position, but we still don’t think you act like a senior.

Do I want to be a senior engineer? Absolutely. I want to learn the skills, I want to "make a greater impact". I love solving problems.

Do I want to do the work to get there? Of course, I do. It is theoretically a meritocracy after all.

Then, what's the problem?

Quid pro quo

I believe the concept is simple. You pay me for x work, I perform x work (baseline.)

Occasionally I will give you x+1 because I am passionate, and I also want you to see that I am indeed capable of x+1 work (above and beyond.)

At some point, you and I agree that I should do x+1 all the time, and you pay me for x+1 work (recognition and adjustment.)

I learned that managers expect differently.

They tell me that I should give my all, and then at some point, I will be duly rewarded.

Really?

You drill it into me that nothing comes for free yet you expect to receive my time, dedication, and energy for free? Sit around waiting for the company to recognise and reward my effort in an annual review twelve months away?

This isn't a meritocracy. This is an excuse for exploitation.

Some might call it a generational divide– A delusional sense of gen-z entitlement.

It's called having self-respect.

One way

If someone is under-compensated for their work, why would the company ever feel the need to pay them fairly? It's great value from the perspective of the engineering budget.

I sure wouldn't go out of my way to spend more money to still get the same performance as before.

Burnout ensues, the employee leaves and the company loses someone who cared.

...or another

Playing out differently, said employee could simply wane their enthusiasm and efforts until they perform just the bare minimum as demanded of their compensation.

A code monkey is born, creativity dies and the company loses someone who cared.

Where I am

I don't like playing games. Games that are supposedly part and parcel of a career.

I should preempt my manager's problems and take care of them before it's their problem.

I should work hard and one day I will be rewarded with a promotion.

I should sit around pretending to do work even after I've completed my tasks for the day because doing anything else paints the team in a bad light. Are you not a team player?

But we're engineers. We like it when a + b equals c. We hold in contempt a program that acts illogically; when a + b only equals c if we feel like they deserve it.

Then why do we play these games?

I've chosen not to.

What it is to be

I am the youngest full-time employee in my office.

I lack the privilege of a guiding figure in life, only ever knowing myself.

What I knew was:

I felt the rugs I stood upon pulled. The goals I aimed for shifted.

I felt deceived and strung along.

It may not be the objective truth. It may not be what my managers intended.

However,

I do not know what is, for I only know what I see.

I saw that I had become bitter.

I was mired in constant, drowning frustration.

I felt no purpose, my work was minimised and inconsequential.

So I stopped trying.

I am so much happier.