I used to think being Senior meant writing complex code faster. 5 years later, I realized it means being scared of complexity and deleting code for fun.
When I started coding, I thought a Senior Engineer was basically a wizard.
I imagined them typing at 120 words per minute, terminal windows flying open like in The Matrix, writing complex algorithms from memory while drinking four Red Bulls before lunch.
Five years later, I have realized the truth. And it is much more boring (and funnier).
The difference between a Junior and a Senior isn't about how much code you write. It is about how much code you don't write.
Here is my breakdown of the evolution from "I can build anything!" to "Please don't make me build that."
1. The Reaction to New Frameworks
The Junior:
"Have you seen UltraJS 5.0? It was released 4 minutes ago on Twitter. We need to rewrite the entire production backend immediately because it supports Quantum Rendering. The old legacy code (written 6 months ago) is trash."
The Senior:
"Does the current app run? Yes? Then touch nothing."
We aren't cynical because we hate fun. We are cynical because we have been woken up at 3 AM because a "cool new dependency" decided to break backward compatibility on a Friday night. Seniors choose boring technology because boring technology lets us sleep.
2. Debugging Style
The Junior:
Panic mode. Randomly changing lines of code.
"Maybe if I change this let to const it will fix the race condition?"
"What if I restart the server 5 times?"
Pastes entire error log into ChatGPT and prays.
The Senior:
Stares at the screen for 20 minutes without touching the keyboard. Looks like they are daydreaming or sleeping with their eyes open.
Then, they type one character.
"Ah. A missing semicolon in the Docker config."
Seniors know that 90% of debugging is reading, and only 10% is typing.
3. Dealing with Repetitive Tasks
The Junior:
Will manually check 500 JSON logs to find an error. "It's fine, I'm fast with Ctrl+F."
The Senior:
Is aggressively lazy. If a task takes more than 5 minutes and happens twice, a Senior will spend 3 days automating it just to save those 5 minutes in the future.
Self-Plug / Example:
I got so tired of manually checking if my AI agents were hallucinating (reading logs is painful) that I built an entire tool (MemVault) just to visualize the vector search. Why? Because I refuse to do manual labor that a script can do for me. Laziness is the mother of invention.
4. The "Code Deletion" Joy
The Junior:
Measures productivity by lines of code added.
"I wrote 500 lines today! I am a god."
They comment out old code "just in case we need it later" (spoiler: you won't).
The Senior:
Measures productivity by lines of code deleted.
"I refactored the auth module and deleted 400 lines. The PR is net negative. Best day ever."
Seniors know that code is a liability. Every line you write is a line you have to debug, test, and maintain. The best code is no code.
5. The Answer to Everything
The Junior:
Has a strong opinion on everything.
"SQL is dead."
"Python is slow."
"You must always use Microservices."
The Senior:
Has one answer to every single technical question, and it is the most annoying answer in the world:
"It depends."
Because it always does.
The Serious Conclusion
Jokes aside, the transition from Junior to Senior is a shift in mindset from Implementation to Risk Management.
A Junior asks: "How do I implement this feature?"
A Senior asks: "Should we implement this feature? And if we do, what will break in 6 months?"
If you are a Junior feeling overwhelmed because you don't know every syntax or library: relax. We don't either. We are just better at Googling things and terrifyingly good at predicting what will go wrong.
What is your favorite "Senior Developer trait"? Let me know in the comments.
/The Lazy Dev
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