Why You're Stuck at Senior Data Engineer (And How to Break Out)

So you've mastered Airflow, built hundreds of pipelines, and have racked up seven-plus years of experience, but you're still seen as just a Senior Engineer.

Maybe your title says “Lead,” but people come to you for tasks, not strategic insight. You’re the go-to for execution, not direction.

The reality? Technical skills only take you so far. At some point, most engineers hit what’s I’ve come to recognize as the senior plateau(although there is some term out there for it), and no, it’s not just you. Even with a supportive manager or director, pushing past it is hard. We keep thinking that if we just deliver more technical work, we’ll naturally level up.

In my experience? That’s not how it works.

Let’s talk about why many talented engineers get stuck at senior and how to break through it.

The Senior Plateau

At many enterprises and tech companies, senior is treated as a terminal role. You’re not really expected to grow much beyond that.

And for good reason, many data engineers are genuinely happy at that level. It’s a sweet spot between hands-on work and ownership, with just enough responsibility to stay interesting without getting pulled into politics.

In fact, I’ve met plenty of people whose goal was to reach senior and coast. No shame in that.

But for those who do want to break past the plateau, it’s easy to get stuck. This is where a lot of talented engineers stall out.

Here are a few signs you’ve hit the ceiling:

• You get asked to execute, not influence

• Promotions feel vague or out of reach

• You’re seen as reliable, but not critical to strategy or decision-making

If you want to grow beyond senior, you can’t just keep relying on the skills that got you where you are. You’ll need to level up in a completely different way.

The Skills That Got You Here Won’t Get You There

One of the biggest challenges senior engineers face is not knowing what to change. So they double down on what’s worked before:

• Increasing technical output, more is more, right?

• Learning horizontally, picking up new tools and frameworks

  • “I know Airflow; let me learn Mage or perhaps MLFlow.”

  • “I am a good data engineer; maybe I should get into AI.”

  • “Let me build an even more complex system.”

The problem is you hit a limit in terms of how much it can grow your career.

This is captured perfectly in

Alex Ewerlöf

’s illustration below.

Source - Principal Engineer