L8 Explains The Leap From Junior To Senior Software Engineer

Kun the Engineer2022-07-15

swe#sde#career#growth

12K views|2 years ago

💫 Short Summary

Kun, a partner level engineer at Microsoft, shares insights on becoming a senior software engineer, emphasizing the importance of problem-solving skills, mindset shift from focusing on activities to focusing on impact, and the need for skills like ideation, prioritization, dedication, and measurement in solving ambiguous and complex problems.

✨ Highlights

📊 Transcript

✦

To become a senior software engineer, you need to focus on solving ambiguous problems and providing the right solutions for your team. This requires a mindset shift from focusing on activities to focusing on impact.

00:00

Senior software engineers (L5) are responsible for solving ambiguous problems with no clear solutions.

Promotion to senior software engineer is based on proving your ability to solve such problems.

The mindset of focusing on impact, not just activities, is essential for transitioning to a senior engineer.

✦

The process of solving ambiguous problems as a senior software engineer involves ideation, prioritization, delegation, and measurement.

02:10

Ideation is the process of mapping out potential solutions for a problem.

Brainstorming with others is important for gaining different perspectives during ideation.

Prioritization involves assessing the return on investment for each potential solution and focusing on the ideas with the highest chance of success.

Delegation is important for managing the workload, and dedication is a leadership skill that senior engineers need to demonstrate.

Measurement involves using a data-driven approach to validate the success of the solution.

✦

Senior engineers often achieve more impact by prioritizing their work and focusing on high-impact tasks. They also need to master the skill of delegation and effectively lead a team.

04:50

High-performing engineers achieve 80% of the impact through 20% of the work by smart prioritization.

Delegation is a key skill for senior engineers, and they need to prove their capability in this area.

Dedication is a leadership skill that is beneficial to master for senior engineers.

00:00 ever wondered what it means to become a

00:02 senior software engineer

00:04 welcome back to my channel my name is

00:07 kun i'm a partner level engineer at

00:09 microsoft and in this video i will share

00:11 with you what i wish i knew when i was

00:14 getting started senior software engineer

00:16 is a title that typically maps to l5 in

00:19 standard leveling system

00:21 reaching this level is a big milestone

00:24 in a software engineer's career it

00:26 signals that you are now carrying

00:28 significant responsibility for your

00:31 team's success and being looked up to as

00:33 a role model for junior engineers a

00:36 common misconception that i keep hearing

00:38 is that to become a senior software

00:41 engineer you need to be really good at

00:43 coding and learn a lot of different

00:46 design patterns programming languages

00:48 and technology stacks that is

00:51 wrong

00:52 throughout my career i've known over a

00:55 hundred senior engineers and not a

00:58 single one of them got there by simply

01:01 learning how to write more beautiful

01:02 codes or how to use more languages to

01:05 understand how to get to this stage you

01:08 first need to know the key differences

01:11 between l4 and l5 i covered this in a

01:14 previous video and you can find a link

01:16 to it in the description below long

01:18 story short l4s are typically given a

01:21 clear direction to build a well-defined

01:24 feature or solution to a problem

01:26 they do need to handle some complexity

01:29 but generally speaking they are told

01:32 what needs to be built l5 however are

01:35 expected to solve ambiguous problems

01:38 that don't always have clear solutions

01:41 for example how to reduce the latency of

01:44 an api

01:45 or how to improve user engagement of a

01:48 product feature it's their

01:50 responsibility to help the team figure

01:52 out what the right solutions are and

01:55 potentially work with other people on

01:57 the team to get the solutions built

01:59 promotion typically happens when you

02:01 have proven your l5 skills by solving a

02:04 few of such problems for the team so now

02:07 the question becomes what does it take

02:10 to solve an ambiguous and complex

02:12 problem first let's talk about getting

02:15 into the right mindset

02:17 as air force you are expected to build

02:20 well-defined solutions as long as you

02:22 have built your features according to

02:24 the spec you are meeting expectations

02:27 this typically results in l4 engineers

02:30 having a mindset of focusing on

02:32 activities

02:34 which means being productive writing a

02:36 lot of documentation and test cases and

02:39 communicating a lot

02:41 however because l5 need to solve

02:44 problems they can't just focus on

02:46 activities alone they need to focus on

02:49 the outcome or impact of their

02:52 activities

02:53 it doesn't matter how much code they

02:55 write or how beautiful the code looks

02:58 if it didn't actually solve the problem

03:00 they failed the mindset of focusing on

03:03 impact is the first leap you should take

03:06 to accelerate your transition into a

03:09 senior engineer once you have

03:10 internalized that you then need a proper

03:14 skill set to help you solve the problems

03:17 let's walk through the problem solving

03:19 process to show you what that looks like

03:21 when you get assigned a ambiguous

03:23 problem the first thing you should

03:25 realize is that there can be a lot of

03:28 different potential solutions to it

03:30 we call that a solution space

03:33 the first skill you will need is

03:35 ideation which is the process of mapping

03:39 out this solution space and enumerating

03:42 all the potential solutions

03:44 this can be done in multiple ways but

03:47 generally speaking i recommend that you

03:49 don't do that alone the more problems

03:51 you solve the more you realize how

03:54 limited a single person's perspective

03:56 usually is

03:58 so instead you want to exchange thoughts

04:01 with other people

04:02 and this is called brainstorming now the

04:05 thing with brainstorming is that the

04:07 brains are not going to storm themselves

04:10 someone needs to identify the need for a

04:12 brainstorm and get it initiated and if

04:16 you are a senior person on the team you

04:18 should assume that's on you to make it

04:21 happen of course you can also flag this

04:23 to your pm or designers to see if they

04:26 want to facilitate the process as well

04:29 in which case you can delegate the work

04:30 to them and be a contributor who

04:33 provides inputs in the process and make

04:36 sure it does produce useful outputs that

04:39 help you enumerate potential solutions i

04:42 will have a future video that

04:44 specifically talks about how to host

04:46 effective brainstorming sessions please

04:48 remember to subscribe to my channel if

04:50 you don't want to miss it once you map

04:52 out the solution space what you will

04:54 soon realize is that it's going to take

04:57 too much time to build all the potential

04:59 solutions this is where you need the

05:02 second skill prioritization

05:04 which is how you assess the return of

05:07 investment for each candidate solution

05:10 and can then create a ranked list of

05:12 ideas so you can work on the ones that

05:15 give you the highest chance of success

05:17 prioritization is such an important

05:20 skill

05:21 if you look at some of the highest

05:22 performing engineers who achieve a lot

05:25 more impact than their peers you will

05:27 notice that they have the same 24 hours

05:30 in a day as everyone else

05:32 but

05:33 oftentimes 80 percent of the impact is

05:36 achieved through twenty percent of the

05:38 work and what these high performing

05:40 engineers do really well is that they

05:43 are very smart about prioritization and

05:46 always focus their time on those twenty

05:49 percent high impact work there are many

05:52 different frameworks to help you with

05:54 prioritization i will cover them in a

05:56 future video as well sometimes after you

05:59 prioritize the list of ideas you will

06:02 realize there is a lot of work to be

06:04 done and if you do it all by yourself

06:07 it's not going to meet your team's

06:08 timeline this is where you need the

06:10 third skill

06:12 dedication l5 engineers don't always do

06:14 this because it depends on the situation

06:17 but it's safe to assume that all l5

06:20 engineers need to prove that they are

06:22 capable of delegating effectively so

06:25 that they can do it when needed

06:26 dedication is a leadership skill and

06:29 it's very beneficial to master even

06:32 beyond l5

06:33 it also deserves its own future video as

06:36 well but for now i will share two

06:38 recommendations

06:40 one

06:40 take an intern if you have the

06:42 opportunity

06:44 working with an intern gives you a

06:46 direct environment to practice

06:48 leadership skills that you may not get

06:50 otherwise

06:52 you will be able to learn what it takes

06:54 to coach someone else to influence their

06:56 decisions and enable them to succeed

06:59 secondly take a training called

07:02 situational leadership

07:04 there are many youtube videos available

07:06 as well this gives you the key concepts

07:09 you need to understand before you can

07:11 dedicate effectively once you got the

07:13 solutions built you would need the next

07:16 skill

07:17 measurement

07:19 this is where you use a data-driven

07:21 approach to validate whether the

07:23 solution has indeed solved the problem

07:26 or not ideally the success criteria or

07:29 measurement plan is defined up front

07:32 before you even start implementing the

07:34 solutions so that the measurement itself

07:37 can be baked into your execution plan

07:40 and timeline for example you might need

07:43 to do some logging work to make the

07:45 results measurable having proper

07:47 measurements helps you track progress

07:50 validate success and communicate impact

07:53 doing this is an essential part of how

07:56 senior engineers operate alright i hope

07:59 this video gave you a good overview of

08:02 what the leap looks like from junior to

08:04 senior engineer

08:06 if you found this helpful please click

08:08 like button so that more people can

08:10 benefit from it i will continue to make

08:13 videos to help software engineers like

08:15 you succeed

08:16 see you next time

💫 FAQs about This YouTube Video

1. What are the key differences between a level 4 and level 5 software engineer?

Level 4 engineers are typically given a clear direction to build a well-defined feature or solution, while level 5 engineers are expected to solve ambiguous problems that don't always have clear solutions.

2. What is the mindset shift required to transition into a senior software engineer role?

The mindset shift required involves focusing on the outcome or impact of activities rather than just being productive, and taking on the responsibility to help the team figure out the right solutions.

3. What are the essential skills needed to solve ambiguous and complex problems as a senior software engineer?

The essential skills include ideation to map out potential solutions, prioritization to assess the return of investment for each solution, dedication to handle the workload and delegate effectively, and measurement to validate the success of the solution.

4. How important is prioritization as a skill for senior software engineers?

Prioritization is crucial for senior software engineers to focus on high-impact work and achieve success in solving ambiguous problems.

5. Why is the ability to delegate effectively important for senior software engineers?

The ability to delegate effectively is important for senior software engineers to handle their workload and lead the team in solving complex problems.

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