Seniority formula There has always been a rush towards getting top edge seniority levels such as senior, principal, architect, or so. For some reason, it seems to be strongly being driven by Dunning-Kruger effect, which is getting so much confidence about our skills way too early. People tend to go for beautiful email footer titles backed up by over-confidence, which slows their progress down unless they meet a good mentor, who guides them through that process.