Working in software engineering for the last 7 months now for two companies and something that I noticed from both of my experiences is this: senior engineers are extremely good at what they do. One might say that this is to be expected since they are senior, but seeing it with your own eyes is just different and this first-hand amazement is what I will be talking about in this blog post.
As I last talked about in my last blog post, my beginnings in tech were recent, unusual, and humble. Therefore, it is of course safe to say I am not going to be anywhere near the level of a senior engineer who has over 10 years of experience compared to someone like me who has just started learning. Even knowing this, the amount of knowledge and expertise of senior engineers is so high in my experience, I still cannot quite imagine myself ever reaching their level.
Before working in these companies and seeing how exactly a company and teams in tech are managed and run on their day to day operations. It is like a well-oiled machine, which is quite different from my experience working together with other students. Because let’s just be honest. I think all of us are a little clueless. Going back to senior engineers, compared to us we are absolutely total polar opposites to them. They are cool, composed, confident, and efficient in their abilities in all domains, especially in problem-solving. Whenever I have trouble with a task or something that is taking longer to complete, it seems like senior engineers always have the perfect answer or solution to do it much better. I always ask myself the question that without senior engineers, how would companies continue to operate? I don’t think companies could afford to take that risk as an experiment, but nevertheless, my point is seeing this, makes someone like me intimidated on the journey ahead.
Senior engineers were once in my shoes theoretically, so sooner or later I guess that is where I am supposed to be in a couple of years down the road as well, which is really hard to imagine. Thinking about this more and more scares me if I can reach those expectations. Overall, whatever the road lies ahead, I am curious and excited to see my progress and if I ever can reach that level I today see so unimaginably unattainable.
