"HR" does not set your professional obligations. If you need to be drunk to talk this honestly, you are not a "senior" nor a mentor, but an incipient alcoholic and a coward.

Then again, this person is obviously also lying to claim the engineer title - sit down, "data science!" You're only even here because Product prefers being lied to - so that really sets an ironically honest baseline on how seriously anyone should be taking any of this farrago.