A Software Developer is a Senior When THIS Happens
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
Many software developers dream of becoming seniors. It can be a long and hard road, and there are several ways to get to your destination. No doubt The Secret Developer has some nuggets of wisdom to share as we explore that long and winding road.
You’ll be senior when…
one of the following happens
You’ve earned it
This is the best-case scenario. If you are a developer who works at a leadership level or starts to work at a senior level.
“I wish this made sense. If someone’s work is at a senior level fine. However, how do you know what THEIR definition of a senior level is to reach their idea of a senior? They judge you but there are no fixed criteria to do so.”
When you gain an inflated title
This can happen instead of a raise, your bonus, or anything else you might want.
“This is one of the reasons that you get ‘Senior’ developers (quotation marks applied). You might want to keep a developer because they are good and work to find any possible solution to make sure they stay in your team.”
When you tell everyone you are
If you repeat something enough times it invariably becomes true.
“There are plenty of jerks in software development teams. One of the best jerk behaviors is to tell everyone how great you are until everyone believes it. This type of software developer also tends to laugh regularly and slightly too loudly. Vile.”
When you’ve enough ‘years’ in the industry
It’s common to frame experience in years despite the quality of experience. That is, software developers can work the same job doing the same thing for ten years and that’s 10 * 1 years of experience (as opposed to 1 * 1 years of experience due to the repetition).
“I’ve noticed something curious about developers and the way they consider experience. People don’t look at your resume (even in interviews) or look you up on LinkedIn.
They look at how many years of experience you have:
‘How long you work development’ is a refrain that rings my ears at times. Some people at work expressed surprise about how I knew so much with ‘only’ so many years of experience. They ignore years of degrees and study as that work doesn’t count.
I think I made my 10,000 hours some years ago and that should really count. Don’t you think?”
Conclusion
It’s not clear from this article whether The Secret Developer is a senior developer or whether they know what they are talking about. They might be a total noob and have no idea what they’re talking about.
“The Secret Developer should not be doubted.
The Secret Developer’s code should not be doubted.
The Secret Developer is awesome.”