What Makes Someone Senior (Not Just Years)
Senior at Startup vs. Enterprise
At a 20-person startup:
- "Senior" might mean 3-4 years experience
- Expected to wear multiple hats
- Technical decisions are fast and autonomous
- Less formal mentorship structure
At Google/Meta:
- "Senior" (L5/E5) typically means 6-10 years
- Deep specialization in one area
- Decisions go through review processes
- Formal mentorship programs
The reality: Someone "senior" at a startup joining Google might come in at mid-level (L4). Someone "senior" at Google joining a startup might struggle with ambiguity. Context matters.
What Senior Engineers Actually Want
1. Autonomy, Not Micromanagement
Senior engineers left their junior years to escape hand-holding. They expect to be given problems, not solutions.
What they want to hear:
"Here's the problem we're solving. You figure out the best approach."
What makes them run:
"I need daily status updates and you need approval for all technical decisions."
2. Path to Staff/Principal
"We're too small for levels" signals no growth. Even if informal, show them where they can go.
What they want to hear:
"We have a technical track. Our senior engineers can grow into Staff or Principal roles with broader impact."
What makes them run:
"Everyone's an engineer here, no levels" (often means no career progression).
3. Impact That Matters
Maintenance mode is death. Even if there's tech debt, frame it positively.
What they want to hear:
"You'll modernize our search to handle 10x traffic."
What makes them run:
"You'll maintain our legacy system."
Common Hiring Mistakes
1. Hiring by Years
"5+ years required" is the default but often wrong. Someone with:
- 8 years repeating year 1 → Not senior
- 4 years of rapid growth and ownership → Senior
Better approach: Define senior by scope and impact, not years. Ask about the biggest project they owned end-to-end.
2. Expecting Senior Skills at Mid-Level Salary
Market rate for senior engineers is $150-200K+. If you're offering $120K, you're hiring mid-level (and setting them up for resentment).
Better approach: Either pay market rate for senior or hire mid-level and give them senior responsibilities with a promotion path.
3. Vague Job Descriptions
"Senior responsibilities" means nothing. What decisions will they make? What scope will they own?
Better approach: "You'll own our payment infrastructure serving 100K daily transactions."
4. Overloading the Interview
6+ rounds exhausts candidates. Senior engineers are in demand—they have options.
Better approach: 3-4 focused rounds. Move fast. Make decisions within a week.
Calibrating "Senior" Across Companies
When interviewing candidates, don't just accept their title at face value. Ask:
- What was the largest project they owned end-to-end?
- What technical decisions did they make, and why?
- How did they influence engineers outside their team?
- What would they do differently in hindsight?
Retention Considerations
Hiring senior engineers is expensive—retaining them is even more important. Senior engineers leave for:
- Lack of growth — No path to Staff/Principal, no new challenges
- Micromanagement — Being treated like a mid-level after earning seniority
- Below-market compensation — Especially when they learn peers earn more
- Boring work — Maintenance-heavy roles without innovation opportunities
After hiring, ensure they have meaningful ownership, a clear growth path, and compensation that reflects their value.