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I faced this issue in the past year and it actually resulted in my leaving
the company for greener pastures. Personal satisfaction is great, but that
"Senior" in the title boils down to more $$$.
Otherwise, the defining terms I go by:
* Mastery of the tools of the trade: Frame, Photoshop, Acrobat, WebWorks,
RoboHelp, etc.
* Specialized skills in any area of expertise: Oracle, Web development,
Java, optical networking, etc. These may be optional, but in my opinion they
place you solidly in the senior category.
* Proven project management skills: The ability to scope out, plan, execute,
and complete a project without supervision (which is not to say you are not
reporting status and progress or problem-solving with your manager).
* The ability to mentor junior writers on the tools of the trade and the
technology you are documenting.
* The ability to jump in, discern what you need to learn (product-wise) to
do your job, learn it, and get the project rolling.
* Enough experience to attain the above, be it two years or five. I don't,
however, see how less than two years of experience can be sufficient to
develop the project management skills or to provide the opportunity to
mentor junior writers.
* An Master's should do it, providing it is backed by plenty of experience.
I don't think an MS straight out of school should get Senior status. They
might get it faster, of course.
As for "what it means," think $$$. In my experience in the SF Bay Area,
Senior TWs easily command 25% more in salary than regular TWs. Salaries for
TWs in a specialized area shoot through the roof simply because they are so
rare.
Of course, there is also the personal satisfaction that you are advancing in
your career, learning new tools, etc. But the bottom line is that we do it
because we have to, and if we have to, we might as well maximize our
compensation.
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A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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