Tom Metro wrote: > Adam Russell wrote: >> I am trying to help a friend find gainful employment. >> To that end I have been helping him sift through job >> listings. > > "Sift" seems to imply that there are a lot. :-) > > >> I have noticed is that my understanding of "job levels" >> is somewhat off. For example, I see job listings for a >> "senior" developer with 5-7 years experience. > > I too was surprised when I first saw such a specification 10+ years ago, > but it seems to be typical. I've seen "senior" specified with as few as > 3 years, though 5+ is typical. > > Consider, though, that this often means 5+ years with the specific > language or skill being requested. Most hiring managers looking for a > Java developer will consider a guy with 15 years of COBOL, but only 2 > years of Java, a junior developer. >
Or you can see requests for a Senior Java programmer with 10 years of experience, in 2002 - I have. And I did not miss a chance to point out... *cough* that I started working with Java Beta 2, and I could only claim 6. > There's a lot of technological turnover in software engineering, > obviously, and as the technologies shift, engineers get thrown back down > the career ladder. > Only if you let them do that, and if there are enough floating bodies to allow them the latitude. Most of the time, HR is busy pointing out what is wrong with the candidate. They would meet a Ph.D, ask for someone young - get a hotshot, ask for experience. It is the game, they need to drive your price down, and circular logic does not bother them. See Dilbert's famous cartoon "I have invented a time machine and a serum of longevity, and have 200 years of UNIX experience" - Catbert had a problem with that candidate, too. Best -F > >> I am at a "senior" level with my current company and if >> I stick around "Principle" is probably at *least* 5 >> years away. I currently have 11 years experience. > > People seem to operate as if there is an industry standard for these > levels, and as far as I've seen, there isn't. I sometimes wonder how > sites like salary.com can neatly fit each job into a category and level. > I assume they're doing a lot of fuzzy matching. > > Even if you can factor out some averages for these levels, they're going > to be different for large vs. small organizations, and as Bill > mentioned, boom times (when labor supply is tight) vs. slow times (when > cash for raises is tight). > > >> So for someone writing code(hopefully mostly Perl!) for >> a living should expect what sort of career trajectory? >> Do all programmers wind up hitting a corporate wall(age-ism?) and end >> up contracting? > > It seems only a tiny percentage of companies (Intel, for example) see > engineers as capable of moving into the executive ranks. > > If you're equating career path with increasing pay, and you want to > remain a coder, you either need to aim for acquiring a small handful of > highly demanded specialized skills that take many years to acquire, or > you create a start-up and become a hands-on CTO (eventually shifting > into some less executive-oriented position, like chief scientist or > similar, as the organization grows). > > Otherwise if you can leave coding behind, you go the usual management > route, get an MBA, etc. Some transition to sales engineers and move up > the ranks from there. > > -Tom > -- _________________________________________ -- "'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge" - Richard Fish (Federico L. Lucifredi) - flucifr...@acm.org - GnuPG 0x4A73884C _______________________________________________ Boston-pm mailing list Boston-pm@mail.pm.org http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-pm
