I ran across a post that discusses what makes you a senior engineer (via Brent Ozar). The main point of the post is that there is a core skill that separates senior engineers from others, which is reducing ambiguity. When a senior engineer gets an ill-defined (or ill-communicated) request, they can deliver a solid, or even great, result.

When someone says “performance is poor,” what do you do with that? Can you build a plan to identify the issues and solve them? Or do you expect the customer to explain what is slow and why it’s slow? Do you ask what metrics they have showing things are slow? A senior engineer can ask questions to find the problem and then determine how to move forward.

The post also discusses the way many companies hire senior people, often basing decisions on years of experience and answering specific questions in an interview or on a test. It’s hard to interview and test a person who is given a vague requirement and develops a solution. Most interviewers don’t want to have to wprl that hard and compare what might be very disparate answers to ambiguous questions. How can you judge two people who give very disparate answers to questions with no clear answer?

It’s hard, and I know this because when I’ve run interviews that lightly describe a situation and let the candidate lead me to the next question, so that I can see how they work and think. It’s very hard to judge the end result and rate the candidate as effective. Often, I find myself deciding if I like the person more and if they fit in our company. That’s if I think they can probe to find information and make decisions when that information is incomplete. If they can’t probe and find a way to solve the problem without direction, that’s an issue.

And that really is the senior skill. In all fields, not just engineers or DBAs. Managers, customer service, analysts, and more. Can someone handle an unstable atmosphere and clarify, identify, simplify, and present a way forward? If they can, then they are likely someone to consider for a senior role. They still need expertise in their area, but can they get things done when they aren’t being directed?

Are they self-starters?

That might be the main thing I consider for senior people. Can they drive themselves and get things done, things we need done, but without a lot of direction and hand-holding? If a senior person struggles to move forward without more direction or supervision, then maybe they aren’t really a senior-level employee.

Steve Jones

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