Experienced Devs

4299 readers

1 users here now

A community for discussion amongst professional software developers.

Posts should be relevant to those well into their careers.

For those looking to break into the industry, are hustling for their first job, or have just started their career and are looking for advice, check out:

Logo base by Delapouite under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

149

Senior Devs in huge corps: Do you even code? (programming.dev)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have been working at a large bank for a few years. Although some coding is needed, the bulk majority of time is spent on server config changes, releasing code to production, asking other people for approvals, auth roles, and of course tons of meetings with the end user to find out what they need.

I guess when I was a junior engineer, I would spend more time looking at code, though I used to work for small companies. So it is hard for me to judge if the extra time spent coding, was because of me being a junior or because it was a small company.

The kicker, is when we interview devs, most of the interview is just about coding. Very little of it is about the stuff I listed..

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

The position to try to achieve these days is of principal or staff engineer. In this role I get to code all day (mostly exploring new and upcoming technologies that might benefit the company) AND lend my advice for architectural solutions to various groups. In my opinion it's the best of both worlds, with out having to be pushed into a management or lead position (which always "leads" to more project management than software engineering).

[–] Kumo 1 points 2 years ago

Wow that sounds amazing, glad that your company seems to understand what engineers find gratifying!

Though, in my limited experience, this isn't the case at all with Principals in my company. As a senior eng, I work with a lot of PEs and I'd be lucky to see a code review from them once a month. They always seem to be stuck in design reviews, status updates meetings, and dealing with misc. corporate bs. I look up to my PEs a lot and respect the hell out of them, but I'd never want to be a PE at my company.

load more comments (3 replies)