Hello everyone,

I'm a senior at a college based in California. I have a SWE offer lined up at a big company in the valley. Very excited to start working. Here's the question: what is your criteria to determine whether a junior software engineer is ready for a promotion to senior software engineer or not?

Some criterias I've heard are:

1. People's skills - can you mentor an intern?
2. Cover the breadth of tools and the tech stack your team uses - can you work independently with minimal help?

Next question is: based on your criteria, how do you optimize (and what do you optimize) for that promotion? What helped you get that first promotion?

Some optimizations I've heard are:

1. Try to get bigger projects so that you can learn how things work end-to-end.
2. Set expectations with your manager. Talk about the promotion and how you can earn it. This way, when you get feedback, it's curated.
3. Job-hop to get that promotion after 1.5 years (and the $$ signing bonus).

What do YOU think? :D