Early in your career, it’s easy to believe senior engineers are just faster typists with deeper syntax knowledge. That illusion fades quickly once you work closely with them.
The real difference is judgment.
Senior engineers spend less time writing code and more time deciding what not to build, what can wait, and where complexity will hurt later. They ask uncomfortable questions early. They think about failure modes. They optimize for team clarity, not personal cleverness.
Junior engineers often focus on making something work. Senior engineers focus on making sure it keeps working when requirements change, traffic grows, or teammates rotate.
This isn’t a criticism, it’s a progression. Judgment comes from seeing systems fail, fixing them under pressure, and reflecting afterward. You can’t shortcut that process, but you can accelerate it by paying attention to why decisions are made, not just how.
If you’re early in your journey, aim less at “writing better code” and more at “making better decisions.” The code will follow.
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