What makes a senior engineer

The base expectation for engineers is that you don't just build whatever you're asked.

You're supposed to push back on requirements, make sure you're building the right thing, uncover hidden unknowns, and act as a strong partner at least to product managers. As you go higher in levels you're supposed to work directly with stakeholders who don't even know what to ask for or how to solve their problems. They say "it hurts here" and your job is to figure out how to not make it hurt.

You cannot go above mid-level without this. Even juniors are expected to at least flag technical difficulties if the PM asks for something that would be too expensive to implement.

At senior and above you're expected to own OKRs, even entire products, and manage your roadmap. Especially when you get to L5, 6, 7 your job becomes "Make sure we are awesome in SomeArea". Nobody even knows what you do day to day. They care about outcomes. The details are up to you.

At mid-level I have seen people not get promoted because they only do what they're asked unquestioningly. This easily leads to failed projects/initiatives and ultimately kills companies.

At senior and above I have seen people get ~~fired~~ managed out for underperformance when they can't set a long-term vision, design a roadmap, and drive projects that may take months and years to implement.

A big part of the job is championing your technical vision of the product and advocating for that vision in product meetings, quarterly plannings, and overall making sure that as people work on individual projects/features they all drive towards your ultimate technical vision.

It's pretty fun :)

But maybe this is a silicon valley / bay area / tech culture thing? Hit reply.

Cheers,
~Swizec