I think you misunderstood what I meant =P

Writing error-free code is hard. I did not say that it is easy.

But for SE1 level engineers, that's all they need to strive for and it is easy to assess whether they have managed to do so.

"easy" here refers to the ease of which a tech lead is able to assess whether the SE1 engineer is able to do more than just writing simple code.

As for frameworks - the creation of good processes, testing, and release frameworks should fall under a senior engineer's plate.

Should we fault an SE1 engineer if these processes aren't around? Probably not.

But if said SE1 engineer is able to write error-free code and push for a process and around testing and release, then he or she will progress really quickly into a senior engineer.