This is an anonymous post from an Elpha member.

Can I go from senior software engineer to software engineer?

Leah76·May 25, 2023

I've been with my current employer for 10 years, with 20+ years of total experience as a software engineer. At my current company, I was promoted from software engineer to senior software engineer 3 years ago.

I'm starting to receive feedback from my new manager that I am not performing at a senior level. I was surprised to hear that for a variety of reasons (one is that about a month ago, he was pushing me to work towards a promotion; the other being that I've been getting positive reviews for the past 3 years in the position). I'm willing to accept that I'm not senior material; I very much prefer to go heads down and write code, which I recognize is the expectation of a mid-level engineer vs. a senior.

All of which is to say: am I employable as a non-senior software engineer? I understand it would come with a pay cut. My concern is that I will not be considered for those positions. I've considered just not mentioning the promotion to senior on my resume; but that might also look like a red flag (10 years with zero promotions? What is wrong with her?).

glojdallas·May 25, 2023

I know several people who moved down a level when switching companies. This often happens because what might count as a senior engineer for one company is not the same as what might be a senior engineer at another company. They were still making advancements in compensation, responsibility, and experience, so the title change was well worth it for them.In your case, 20+ years of experience should qualify you as a senior engineer pretty much ANYWHERE (many of my clients consider engineers to be senior after only 5-7 years of experience). If you are being faced with a demotion, I would strongly consider looking for a new job. I will say that I think a lot of companies would be concerned about why you haven't been promoted in such a significant amount of time. If you do want to stay in this job, I would recommend asking for the specific job description for a senior software engineer at your company. Once you have the list of the role's qualifications and responsibilities, I would check to see if your work matches up. It seems off to me that your manager wants to downlevel you (especially since you have been a senior SWE for 3 years and have had positive reviews this entire time). Is there a reason that you're willing to accept that? I know that you mentioned that you like heads down coding, but I know a lot of senior engineers (as well as principal and staff engineers) who also do a lot of heads down work. Something about this doesn't feel right.

Lawanna127·May 26, 2023

No I wouldn’t take a pay cut or lower title….you’ve earned that. The expectations in tech are just so crazy now with the insane year over year growth for the past few years. It is unsustainable for companies to expect so much from workers….the tech work environment has become toxic with the extreme overwork and “Jack-of-all-trade” + 24/7 on-call mentality and it looks like it is just becoming a late-stage capitalistic dystopia.Maybe you can focus on some niche tech skills which can help set you apart from more generalist SWEs so it’s harder to be replaced.