Startups hand out senior titles like candy. The industry pays the price.
I have been doing interviews for about a year now, and I cannot escape this pattern. Someone denotes themselves as a “Senior Engineer,” they have some number of years of experience—perhaps three—and they cannot provide an intelligent explanation of how a basic concept works, e.g. database indexes. This is not a fluke. It’s an epidemic.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Based on data from levels.fyi, on average, it takes between four to seven years to be promoted to a senior engineering position at a FAANG company. For startups, the average is three years, and in some cases, two years.
That discrepancy is not due to rounding numbers. That's a completely different definition of the same word.
