Introduction
One of the main advantages of being a professor in the university and in the vocational training centers for more than 12 y...
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Senior, adjective
Both age/time spent and experience are factors in the definition.
We really need another word to use for "very experienced with mentoring skills", since that is what most people mean in developer context, the duality of "senior" makes for too much confusion.
Then perhaps we would not need articles to explain and debate what senior means' to them. :D
Does everything have to be defined in a literal sense? Seems like a great way to miss the point.
If we leave things up to interpretation then people are ultimately gonna disagree what things mean, which then leads to problems in my experience.
In the end this a rather benign problem relatively speaking imho, but a problem none the less. :)
fx. when a none teck person are looking for X type of developer, but by X they really mean Y, and the person reading it understands it as Z.
Great article.
I agree with your point on finding the answers to every "why".
I recall during my first job, while building a contact form for a client, I made the form submit user-input via AJAX, and display a 'thank you' message in real-time.
My 'senior' dev told me to make the form a 'hard form' which loads a new page on submission. It took way longer to do that than than the original implementation, and he didn't seem to care.
I asked why, and his response? "Because that's how we've always done things". 🙄
His credibility as a dev was shot long before this for similar stuff, but man, I do not miss working for that company.
Heh, I've been that Sr. — doing the "...because that's how we do things..." or the ever popular "...because I said so..."
When I really meant "...because there are conceptual flaws in your approach that don't work for our audience and/or client and I really want to explain but I'm already 2-weeks late on my own deliverables and don't have time to explain why your solution isn't optimal. So save your solution, but do it this way and we'll discuss it when this project's out the door."
Hopefully I (and your former senior) get better at communicating the latter. ;-)
I say that tongue-in-cheek — my experience likely has nothing in common with yours. I understand the frustration, though. I've been both the Jr. Dev and the Sr. Dev in that scenario. It's always hard trying to balance mentoring with just getting stuff done. The same as it's hard to be new, intelligent, highly talented and both eager and hungry to do awesome stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little fear of the unknown happening there. If you stop learning it becomes tempting to shut out anything unknown, for fear of being shown to be obsolete.
A brilliant, former manager of mine (whom I respect a great deal and co-founded a famous company) once said:
Could probably use a few caveats from your list, but is nice and concise.
Really enjoyed reading this! Great post!
As a some what mid-level developer, without sounding overly confident or arrogant, it's nice to know i'm adopting some of the things you've spoken about while on my way to becoming a more senior developer!
Thanks, I really needed this encouragement. My impostor syndrome was sneaking back in, as I'm interviewing for a senior developer position, but this quote kicked said impostor syndrome in the teeth:
I think the key take away here is "I don't know" but being able to rectify that by having the ability to know.
Ultimately being honest with your self and abilities, along with constant exposure from being open minded, sharing and connecting with others coming from a place experience is solid trade marks for being a senior developer. Plus being able to deliver!!
Or she
As a "senior developer" (in both senses of the term) what people want when the say, we need a senior developer is a dev with highly relevant recent experience to our stack. It doesn't mean anything anymore. And as for "junior developer"? That's just plain insulting. Its a dog-whistle for we pay poorly.
Amazing!
I never dared to consider myself as a senior developer.
Now I know that I am one.
I research a lot, I ask "Why?" all the time, I mentor with my writings and I dare to say "I don't know"
Muchas gracias!
Congrats!!!
You're welcome!
Great article Carlos! Wow, hit it right on target.
Thank you for this article. I think that I found missing piece of my puzzle :)
Switch jobs?
Best way to become a senior developer is to work in a Spanish speaking country. You become Señor Developer by definition. It's even cooler if you are a gal, Señora Developer!