Your title isn’t what prevents you from leading
When I was more junior (L4 at Google), I used to think that I needed to become a senior software engineer to be able to lead and get others to listen to me. I was wrong.
I felt like I had an egg and chicken problem where:
- I had to demonstrate L5 (senior engineer) behavior before being promoted to L5
- I needed to be L5 for others to listen to me
The truth in the software engineer industry is that leading isn’t an archaic top-down organization process. You can lead on different domains (e.g. on specific technical aspects, on a project organization, on a staffing point of view etc.). In practice, it means that you can sit in a meeting full of people more senior than you and still be leading the convoy.
In my case, I can be talking about a privacy initiative with a room full of directors/principal engineers (i.e. more senior than me) and still lead the discussion/project but rely on others to lead points that they own (e.g. network aspects, staffing process etc.).
Over time, I’ve learned that leading isn’t a trophy you gain, but a responsibility your peers grant you – you have to build the trust that you can lead and your title has little to do with it.