If you want to be senior, stick around for a while

I’ve recently read an interesting article (link) arguing that one can only be considered a senior engineer after navigating at least one legacy project. And I somewhat agree with this sentiment.

I’ve been around the software industry for a little while now, experiencing everything from greenfield codebases at early-stage startups to massive, multi-year enterprise software in large organizations where I was a maintainer.

Reflecting on those experiences, I’ve learned a lot about what went well and where I failed to anticipate challenges when projects scaled massively. This is where a critical skill is formed: The power of hindsight and the lessons learned from past mistakes.

Looking back, it’s sometimes obvious that certain decisions were less than ideal. But we often forget that, at the time, we lacked the mental tools to foresee those outcomes. Whether it was underestimating technical debt, misjudging scalability needs, or not fully grasping maintainability issues, these lessons only became clear after sticking around long enough to see their long-term impact.

That’s why I recommend every engineer to stick around for a while. Make decisions, learn from the consequences, and grow from them. Sure, job-hopping is a thing in the tech industry, and if a significant pay bump is on the table, go for it. But if you want to gain the kind of production-grade insights that truly shape your career, you have to stay long enough to witness the outcome of your choices. You can’t simply speed-run some experiences.

What lessons have you learned by seeing your decisions pan-out over time? Feel free to send me a message on socials.