It's OVER For Me?! Senior Software Engineer Is Coding Less And Less

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hey folks I am leaving the mall not work um I had ordered something for my wife and the way that it was going to get shipped would mean that one of us would have to be home to receive it which is stop beeping at me it's not going to be uh feasible so to get okay this is the most annoying thing ever um I guess I can't go that way never fine um I just let that person go anyway uh she has Fridays off work and I was like Hey the thing showed up at the store and she's like great you can get it on the way home um and she's not wrong so I had to take a bit of a DED to her uh but that means I'm going to be stuck in probably some of the worst traffic ever uh also I

don't know if I can reach this parking thing but I have a topic we're going to talk about I think I can reach we're going to talk about some transition to senior and some expectations nope I can't reach I'm too short my parents made me this way um also I don't like getting too close to those things because that would cost a lot anyway um so we're going I don't have the 360 cam on because it's uh raining and we know how that goes if you watch some of the other ones but it's going to be like probably an hour to get home uh and we're going to talk about there's a Reddit post that I thought was interesting and someone was saying how some of their observations with going to more of a senor year old one sec I got to back up for

this person one of their observations is that they're doing a lot of these other things that aren't actually just coding and they kind of were describing some things that were like I feel like I'm being more of like a a spokesperson for my team sometimes and uh just kind like it's just interesting right um these other activities that aren't just coding so they're kind of saying like is that a normal thing like what's going on here and uh yeah so I wanted to talk about this because I think that for some folks that are going through that or it's on the horizon for you in the future I I think that it's important to recognize that this kind of thing can be uh you know quite quite common and I think it is a bit of an expectation so just a friendly reminder if you

have questions you want answered leave them in the comments um and otherwise if you want to send something with more detail then look for Dev leader on social media that's my main YouTube channel and my social media handle I'll keep it Anonymous if you message me and then I can uh give you a video response so when this person's describing woo the context of their post is actually that they feel like they're not progressing as a software engineer now and I guess when I say they're feeling that way it's it's also like an open question right they're kind of saying like hey I'm observing that this is happening in my career right like I was Junior kind of worked through mid level it's been a few years now I think four or five or something years and they're now kind of progressing to a more

senior role and they're saying I'm observing that I'm spending less time coding I'm spending more time in planning I'm spending more time being a like a a spokesperson for the team whether that's talking to other stakeholders other teams about the technology whatever the team's doing and just overall less time actually you know heads down writing lines of code so am I progressing as a software engineer or am I like stagnating and uh I think you know be curious to hear from folks in the comments like oh come on buddy don't do that totally needless um again insta 360 would be nice but it's raining and that doesn't work so well this person just like cut me off um but I'm interested in your thoughts what are if you're you know senior and you're finding that you're spending less time writing code you know is that

a big no no for you like are you in a senior plus role and you actually do spend a majority of your time writing code what does that look like um so I'm going to kind of share my perspective on this and uh like I said would love to hear from you guys in the comments so my my thought is that um still as a senior software engineer you will be writing code like it's not like that just goes away depending on the size of the company the age of the company and the products and services you're working with you might find that like because and I I've seen this more at like where I was working before Microsoft at a smaller company that if you happen to have a lot of experience and people need that right like different teams are trying to pull

you in because you have some subject matter expertise you might find that your value is being um is sort of being that in between that connector that that person that can help bridge the gap between these things or help educate others because you do have that experience now at larger companies it's almost like there's more people that can facilitate that so I feel like it's less of a strain or there's more perhaps like I isolation within teams for their focus areas and I find like it's not that it doesn't exist it's just less common but still coding still going to be a big part of your day now this person's saying like based on their observations it feels like they're doing a lot of this other stuff and not a lot of coding and part of me is curious like is it just because they're

starting to observe a discrepancy for maybe the first time in their career so it's not that there's zero coding but now they're going man like instead of having you know in an 8 hour workday maybe you get 5 hours 6 hours of like heads downtime coding maybe that's uh being too generous for many places because of meetings and stuff even what whatever your normal is right say you get four hours of heads down cating a day and now you've moved more and more towards your senior position and you're like man like if I get like one or two hours of coding done a day like that's that's kind of where I'm I'm topping out at and um I'm just wondering if that's that uh discrepancy is making it feel like zero right for this person so this is a I mean not only a common

thing when you're in my opinion like moving up through seniority as an individual contributor but when I've made vide vide is talking about moving to an engineering manager role um and for those of you that don't know like I've been an engineering manager for 12 and a half years and the first eight years were like a hybrid where I was an engineering manager but also was like we called it a technical manager so I would be contributing to the code base um but when if you do that transition to like being a people manager uh the the amount of time you're spending coding like for me is zero these days at work I don't code at work I code every day outside of work cuz I enjoy it but I I don't code at work and when you go through this transition you're like holy

like like what it starts to feel weird it's like what value am I adding because you're so used to your value being I'm writing lines of code I'm fixing bugs I'm creating features I'm literally handson doing the thing I got my pull request up I pushed a production you know I can see the results of what I buil coming through these different signals or through customer feedback like I did it that's me right but at some point if you're spending more time doing these other things you may feel like you're going through this period where you're like what what is the contribution I'm actually having because it looks very different now what I I don't want to NE necessarily get into a debate about like you know x% of time as a senior should be spent doing whatever and like I asked you know ask

you guys you know feel free to put in the comments what you think but like the reality is I I'm saying that because I think it's going to be different in many places right I don't think that there's a right or wrong answer um personally but I I do think that what is common is that as you become more you spend less time actually writing lines of code so the reason I wanted to to talk about this for this video was because I I want to try and bring awareness to some of a couple things right I want to bring awareness to these other types of activities that as someone who's gaining more seniority you know maybe you have a senior title or whatever the title happens to be some of these other activ ities that are really important and then I want to also

mention the skill sets for these activities you might start realizing you need different skill sets what's going to be like common no matter what especially as an individual contributor is like your technical skills are always valuable it's not like all of a sudden you become senior and you're doing these other types of activities and then it's like oh wait like all of those years where I was coding like they don't matter it's the same thing as an engineering manager right I might not be coding at work but the fact that I have a lot of experience programming and I still program daily means that I can have more meaningful conversations it means that I can have more effective conversations so it's not like all of a sudden number one you're not even stopping coding as a senior software engineer but the other activities you're doing

it's still very beneficial to have your technical skills that's what got you there it's just that now you're going to start to find these other ways to leverage your technical skills so and and I have to yawn really bad I knew it was coming I could feel it and I was like hold it in but it's not worth it um because I'm not editing these videos and I'm not going to try to hold in a yawn for the next 28 minutes so uh where does this person think they're going you can't merge in here the uh one of the examples that this person was giving was kind of describing um I don't have it pulled up on my phone cuz I'm driving but I I had a peek at it before I started they use something like a like the phrase like a spokesperson for

their team now if we just like without having the exact context for this like what does a spokesperson do well they're going to be representing something they're going to be talking positively about something right so they're interfacing between one group and another group and trying to share positive things generally trying to do a very brief generic summary of a spokesperson so if if we ask oursel like well you know why does it matter that a senior software engineer is doing that what do their technical skills matter for that is that a good use of their time like like like what's going on with this right I think number one when we talk about technical skills being valuable for this type of thing is that I mentioned you're going to be for like the spokesperson right you're going to need technical skills to represent one side

and that's going to be your team your team that consists of the other Engineers you are the very technical side you understand the code you understand the technical implementations of things you know what's up you understand the guts of what you're representing the other side when you're a spokesperson is either going to be perhaps groups of other technical people it might be groups of very non-technical people so now you're in this position where you really need to understand the technical details because if you can't even understand what's going on on your side good luck trying to translate it which is the second part translating it to the other stakeholders now this is where you're going to be bridging your technical skills with soft skills if you watch my other videos you'll hear me always trying to drop in like hey your soft skills are important

here's a good example you need to be able to take technical things and Translate them into perhaps non-technical terms for other people to really understand the value so with that out of the way you might still have the question well how does that fit in with being a senior software engineer well when you're having conversations with other teams or other stakeholders you may find that you're being brought into conversations because your team maybe you have a technology you're working with or you're a platform or or whatever and you're like we've built something that should be able to accommodate this whatever it happens to be right so to give you an example like uh I work on a routing plane for Microsoft we will have technologies that route requests we will have Technologies for caching we will have technology for firewalls like we we do a

bunch of these different things so to be a spokesperson in this case would mean perhaps there's another team that has a need for some of these components or perhaps they're a team that needs to have their traffic routed now because we're a platform in one area of Microsoft people will just be onboarding us regardless but outside of this area in Microsoft if you could be a spokesperson and say hey look we route all of this traffic for these teams and like yes I understand that your teams not part of that but like our technology could absolutely support that right you could basically increase your customer base and have a bigger impact across the organization right if your technology is actually a good fit for their needs so by being a spokesperson for your team you can help start bridging gaps whether that's between you know

immediate teams or that's teams across organizations there's so many opportuni ities where you can start creating this is going to sound I should have picked a different word I wanted to say there so many opportunities for you to create opportunities but um so many scenarios for you to create opportunities maybe that's a better way to say it and this is something that I think you know like one example this person called out as a senior software engineer yeah something like that will become more common the scale at which you're doing that I would say like at a principal level that becomes even more common when you're trying to do things across an organization from bigger and bigger impact right this this is obviously just one example that this person called out but you're probably not doing that as a junior or mid-level engineer it's unlikely

so yeah that is an opportunity for a more senior role to be doing that and that means that that's going to be something that takes time but there could be a tremendous amount of value in doing it another thing they called out was planning spending more time doing planning okay right like and I realize saying that might trigger people because if I say this bad word jira then people are going to freak out you know maybe that's causing some trauma for some people um so I apologize but the act of being involved in planning means that again depending on what level of planning are you helping coordinate you know engineering effort that needs to go into things are you helping talk about like are you getting to to be part of the decision- making of the work streams that are going to help deliver the

business value that's being planned like there's a lot of interesting opportunity as someone who is more senior to be able to start again like representing your team representing the technology you're working with helping make decisions about you know how the technical aspects of what your team's responsible for will fit into these business objectives even simply if you're part you know spending more time planning and even if it was simply helping forecast and estimate when things will land like I realize that people don't love doing that me included by the way like if someone says story points to me in my career I don't I can't work anywhere that's going to be using story points just for what it's worth so that's a absolute deal breaker for me but um you know if people need to help get timelines estimated like I think that's an important

thing I acknowledge that you know most estimates are absolutely wrong but at least the conversation of discussing why we think something should take so long or or not can help highlight things and then it's a it's a line in the sand for us to say cool we think we can work towards that if we're not on track for that let's use that as a mechanism to get a conversation going car there is nothing jumping in front of me please stop beeping so spending more time doing planning like is that is that a useful thing like yeah you can have a lot of impact by being part of the planning and that is something that probably a more Junior software engineer there's literally nothing in front of me car it's not something that a junior software engineer or a mid-level is probably going to be as

effective at so you do get to to try playing a bit more of this role and and and delivering some type of uh benefit by doing that so again these are things just to kind of you know uh do a checkpoint here these are things that aren't coding and they're helpful you'll find that you're spending more time doing designs or reviewing designs you might even find that you're spending di on again yeah there it is um you might come on get in here buddy no okay you'll find that you're doing less time coding and maybe you're reviewing other people's code more right there's there's these shifts that are going to be happening as you're gaining seniority someone on one of my videos comment I can't remember the exact comment it's not directly in front of me but I I thought they framed something interesting they

said um I can't remember the word they use but we it was about promotions in one of my recent videos and they said a promotion's not uh I can't remember the word they picked so I'm going I'm butchering this but it was something like a promotion is not necessarily like a blessing right like a promotion is actually like a respon responsibility increase like whatever they used to frame it I thought was a good word but then they broke it down and they said it's a responsibility increase it's a you know increase of expectations on you um and anyway I thought it was a really good comment I wish I did a better job uh remembering exactly what it said but that's like part of what I'm trying to drive at here is that as you're becoming more senior you're going to have these other responsibilities

and they are very important and they will have impact and it's just that how you look at the impact you're trying to to have as a software developer will start to shift now it's true that at some point if you follow this kind of progression and this is this is relevant to one of the other videos I made recently you very well may find that in certain organizations what they expect of certain lels so you get promoted to some level you get promoted to the next level you may find at some organizations you're like I actually don't enjoy the work that's expected for this level right if if the reality was that you loved having your hands in your in the code you love doing that you really enjoy it that's what gets you excited if at some point in your IC progression by the

way IC individual contributor if you hear me saying it that's what I mean so sorry I I realize some people might not use the phrase um you might may find at some places IC progression means at some point you're you're truly just coding less and less and less not that you're not part of the development process you're just coding less and for some people they might say at that level like I don't want to be that far removed from coding there are literally people who will not try to progress to take on more responsibilities it doesn't mean they don't do a kick-ass job because you can do a kickass job at something and not necessarily beating sorry not necessarily be meeting the expectations or the requirements of the next level like you're not doing those responsibilities which is fine right I'm just going to give

you an example like I beyond like I'm at principal level at at Microsoft um say just as an example say at partner level um the expectation is that you know my my job my job description starts looking very different and that meant that it was only strategic or I couldn't be in like I wasn't expected to be involved in certain activities maybe that would mean like hey I'm not interested in that I actually don't think that's the case because I think that is generally those types of activities for me I significantly more interested in so I feel like that's good news to try and move in that direction at least but um you know if for you if you're looking at the next level of progression and you're going those are activities I don't like doing at some point it's not it's not like it's

a wrong thing to say I don't want to go to that next level um just a quick note to to break this down a little bit more because I realize what I'm saying might sound weird or confusing um at Microsoft we have uh sort of like a Performance Based rewards okay and we also have levels so you could be uh a level 61 software engineer and um and then there's like a performance component so every year if you're um you know perfectly on target you're doing what's expected of you there is a uh B Baseline for your level that you'll get performance compensation it's a it's a bonus and what can happen is that es and it's less common at lower levels but especially as your levels are increasing greater and greater there may be situations where someone's like look like you're truly not ready

to be promoted to the next level because you are not doing the things expected of that next level and you might be in a position where you're like that's cool like I don't want to do those things but you can do the things expected of your level really freaking awesome and that means you're not getting promoted but your your compensation like in terms of your your bonus is high right it sounds kind of weird because I think a lot of the time we equate these things hey look if I'm going to be getting a bonus it must mean that I'm doing a kickass job yes it does but that doesn't NE necessarily mean that you're doing a kick-ass job and deserving of the next level because those expectations will be different right it's not I think a lot of people think about if I do

good then next level will be given to me but it's actually you need to be demonstrating that you can do the next level it's much more rare where someone will say I haven't seen you do it but I really believe that you can so I'm going to promote you and then hope right that doesn't really happen I'm not saying it there's zero chance I'm just saying it's not really that common it's actually much more rare So to bring that all back together there's going to be things as senior software Engineers that you're going to be doing more of and yes they will have impact as well um the amount of those things or how much they're were expected in what context that will absolutely change from from company to company right I could tell you this is what it looks like at Microsoft someone at

Amazon might say something different probably big tech companies are pretty similar that way um you might be at a startup and you're like dude like I'm Junior and I'm doing those things or I'm you know I'm senior and I've been not doing those things for forever um it's it's going to be different everywhere but uh the I guess my point is that I would expect that your responsibilities change and it's uh I would say more common that as you're getting more senior you're doing things that are a little bit more removed from directly being in code so and I mean I have a great counter example just so you you understand that I am trying to play Both Sides here there is a I believe he's like you must be at like partner level at at Microsoft someone of my org and um like he's

helping with uh you know he's submitting poll requests for like changing package versions and stuff like that like it's it's not something that you would uh expect someone at that level to be doing but he has a really amazing skill set where he's like able to kind of look extremely broad across an enormous code base and be doing this kind of stuff and doing it very effectively so pardon me first sneezes on the channel maybe those hurt my God so I'm trying to give you there's an example right of someone who is a very high level that is still in the weeds doing coding stuff but right it's not like it's it's zero uh for everyone but I I imagine there's less and less of that as a general rule so keep that in mind right if you're if you're getting nervous like hey like

I'm spending less time coding does that mean I'm becoming a worse software developer no it's just that it starts to look different and if you're ever concerned about that I mean you could always talk to talk to your manager that's what we always say on this uh this channel right remember to talk to your manager or if that's not how the organization you're working at operates like it might might be uh time to change to go somewhere else right it's like uh as an engineering manager now I told you already like I love to code at at home I code every day I'm going to be coding tonight I'm be coding tomorrow it's Saturday tomorrow I'm going to be coding I love it but um in terms of my career no not now because I the path that I'm on that I'm enjoying personally is

that I want to be progressing in terms of having more organizational impact and for me that means the more time I'm spending writing code at work the less opportunity I have to do more strategic type things like that to have broader influence so that is a path that I have personally put myself on to try and move towards but I think like you know if if you're experiencing something at one place so just to give you an example if Microsoft was like well no you as a manager you have to be spending 50% of your time coding I would say well then I I have to go somewhere else so if you're a senior software engineer somewhere and they go great now that you're senior you have to be doing this this and this and you're like I don't like those things it might it

might be you know depending on what they are you might have some expectation of that no matter where you're going like you're probably to be mentoring people more you're probably going to get pulled into planning more it's just kind of the nature of things but if there's some expectation of that that you're really not liking like the amount of it there may be other places that are a better fit so I'm just trying to give you an example there but I'm home I'm hungry it's Friday remember that on Mondays because I'm going to put this one out Pro this one might go out on Monday so anyway Mondays on my main channnel Dev leader I have a live stream it's generally based on a topic from this channel which is code commute and I generally will take one of these topics I will go write a newsletter article which is at weekly.

deev leer.com Pacific I will do a live stream on dev leader so check it out thanks for being here stay to the end and I'll see you next time take care