Fhyujk

How about you wait for the interview before you judge that person...

• Not everyone is interested in climbing the corporate ladder.




• Maybe there was no other position suited for them at the company.




• At least it tells you, they are good enough to be kept around for over a decade.




• how about they love what they do so much that they don't consider other positions




• Higher positions require leadership and "people" skills and maybe it's just not in their nature




• some people don't want to have too much responsibilities




• Many are just fine with being told what to do and then carry on with their work




• Maybe they needed a stable income for personal reasons without the risks new and more demanding positions bring to job security and time management

Why is this OK and not a red flag?

So you seek someone who will do Software-engineering for you. The candidate you have at hand has a lot of experience in that area. He has achieved the highest rank possible where his main occupation still is software engineering - long ago, and he stayed with it.

So chances are:

• He really loves what he is doing.


• He is good at it and does not do all the expensive rookie mistakes.


• He does not want to get into a leadership-position and make expensive rookie mistakes there.


• He is really loyal and if treated right, will stick around your company equally long


• You won´t have to do expensive recruiting and training of a new developer in 3 years

Go to see for yourself. Try to find out especially if he is open and interested in new technologies, ideas and engineering-concepts and if he can communicate and share his knowledge with the rest of the team.

The most important question, in my opinion, is: Can you afford to ignore applicants?

For development jobs, at least here in Germany, there are so few applicants, that I interview everyone who is not obviously unqualified. I cannot afford to skip over someone based on too little information.

For other jobs, when you have a hundred applications for one opening, it makes sense to filter more strongly, based on criteria you ideally have defined it advance.

Yes, what you describe is uncommon, but it's not necessarily bad. In fact, thirty years ago, profiles like this were the norm. At the very least, you have someone who is easily motivated and loyal.

Why would it be a red flag? Senior Software Engineer or Software Engineer III could be highest position in his company that still was able to code, so because of that, he maybe didnt want to become a manager or whoever else.

Not every company creates fancy positions like Senior Ninja Developer or Wizard JS Dev just in order to give promotions

Why is this OK and not a red flag?

It depends on the company's culture but for some, it is a red flag.

The company I work in, a large one, considers that a candidate like this is not someone to invest in and will call contractors for profiles like this, preferring recruiting people able to "climb the ladder".

For some other companies, it is a type of profile they seek in order to have experts / senior developers.

TLDR: Ask your management to clarify the profiles they want you to find and if they consider it as a red flag.

Will the candidate influence the team in a good way? Or will the candidate seem bored and show tiredness for doing the same thing endlessly?

You don't have enough informations to answer this. See the candidate, interview him. Only knowing he has been in the same job for years is not enough.

• Consider that "the same position" doesn't necessarily mean the same team, tech stack, project or even the same office. I personally work with a different client every 6-12 months, and I've learned a lot of new technologies, gotten significant raises, moved to a different branch, all without my job title ever changing. That might not be the norm, but it happens. Ask the candidate about some war stories, they might surprise you.




• Some companies offer job security and new toys. At my last client (key player in a very lucrative segment) all but one or two of my colleagues had been at the company for 10+ years. Yes, there were a handful that disliked having to learn new tech, but they were a minority.




• They might have been very invested in the job or the company. Could be a project they championed, improvements to the workflow they made over time, or perhaps the company was a successful startup?

All you can infer from this information is either:

• The developer has reached their comfort zone in capability, and is unwilling to take on aditional responsabilities (people management, project management, etc) as mandated by their current employer's structure.




• The developer has some specific weakness which limits their progression in the above structure (e.g. inability to work well with non-technical, non-expert staff).

You also know they have held a position for an extended period of time, so you can be reasonably confident in identifying their current potential.

Now, you ask about how this will affect your team. This depends on if your team are all expected to move on to be managers in a few years, if you have a high turnover, how diverse the age and experience range currently is, if you feel secure in managing your team - but if you're genuinely recruiting for the role you have matched this candidate too, you might have a very good opportunity. There is no hint of a red flag compared with any other potential candiate based on this information.

On the other hand, 15 years experience with 20 different roles does start to look like a candidate who still hasn't found something that they feel they can do well.