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How do you approach appealing to formal seniority in a technical discussion?

by begoon on 2/24/25, 4:05 PM with 9 comments

• by taylodl on 2/24/25, 4:30 PM

  Those are all logical fallacies.

  I've been developing software for 40 years, yet there are still times when people who've only been developing software for 5 years or less have better ideas. One secret to surviving in this field for 40 years is leaving your ego at the door and being willing to learn from anyone, including those who are "under" you.

  Having said that, from a practical standpoint, there needs to be a person empowered to make the final decision. That person is usually a lead developer, manager, and so forth. If you are that person, then your job is to facilitate the technical discussion and get as many ideas as you can. Remember that every single idea comes with a set of pros and cons - there's no perfect solution. You'll do your team a great favor if you do the analysis and decision-making out in the open.

• by toast0 on 2/24/25, 6:16 PM

  Is it a technical discussion or a work discussion? In a technical discussion you can certainly say something like "my experience has shown X and Y (without documentation), but if you can show evidence for !X or !Y, I'd take a look". Of course, if both sides are asserting facts without documentation, it's more of a pissing match than a technical discussion; but maybe you'd like to come to agreement on what kind of documentation would be acceptable.

  In a work discussion, you can say "well, X or Y may be true, but my experience says !X and !Y, and this is my project, so let's assume !X and !Y, and y'all can blame me later when it becomes apparent I was wrong." and if the other party really doesn't want to go along with it, come up with a limited allotment of time for them to investigate after which either you'll be convinced to change your assumptions or to allocate more time, or they'll go ahead with your assumptions even if they don't like it.

• by romanhn on 2/24/25, 5:01 PM

  I would lose a healthy dose of respect for you if you trotted one of these out in a conversation with me in an attempt to convince me of something. As another comment mentions, argument from authority is literally a logical fallacy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority). Make an argument based on knowledge and facts, and be ready to accept opposing viewpoints, rather than browbeating the other party into submission. There are times when a decision is already made and disagree-and-commit is desirable, but there are more tactful approaches than just throwing your seniority around.

• by dgunay on 2/24/25, 10:52 PM

  Don't just reach for lines like these if you don't have an evidence-based reason to back it up. The moment you do that, your coworkers will realize that you are just trying to shut them down and don't care about having an intellectually honest discussion. And besides, what good are experience and credentials if they don't give you the knowledge to substantiate your ideas?

  If there's any other good reason for that (typical corporate externalities like "hey, I'm really sorry but management says we have to <do really stupid thing>, this is not up for debate"), that's one thing, but if it reflects entirely on you then that's a really bad look IMO.

• by aristofun on 2/25/25, 3:51 AM

  Sometimes you should listen to it if it’s in a good faith.

  Because experience does matter.

  Often really experienced people have hi quality intuitions they can’t explain and break down to pieces clear to everyone in the room.

• by scarface_74 on 2/24/25, 8:01 PM

  I don’t. I care about ideas well articulated not your title.