How to Recognize the Real Senior Developer?
Different developers have a different skill set no matter how many years they spent in the development world. That is why the position and Senior title frequently doesn’t fit all. So what makes one developer better than the other? What isolates the one from the whole ocean of average-skilled developers?
Many years of experience doesn’t ensure they are successful and productive senior developers, or that they even deserve the title. There are many weak ones out there who give the real seniors a terrible rep.
Here are some of the qualities that will help you quickly distinguish between the right senior developer and a developer with seniority.
Programming Principles
Stability, goal-oriented, functional programming and clean coding techniques are programming principles that hide behind every successful code creation.
What a lot of junior developers forget on their coding journey is that programming is a language, and that means it spreads beyond grammatical rules. It’s a communication tool that can be structured in many ways, and programming principles help create a particular stance and define the way the code is written.
Everyone can learn to code, the same way everyone can write a text message. However, the level of writing of one message is not near to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter book. The same way you would find the differences between Senior’s and Junior’s code.
Programming principles act as the guiding force behind a senior developer’s code. All languages are made up of formulas, and senior developers understand them at an internalized level that many junior and mid developers have yet to experience.
Ability to Write the Code
In the beginning, every developer tends to find answers on Stackoverflow and just copy and paste the code. How they use it differentiates the skill of new juniors and low-level mid developers.
Seniors, however, go one step further. They can create their sandboxes without much searching on Google. They know what they’re doing, and they understand the expected results of their moves. They see the flaws or at least predict them, and following the potholes in their code, they can improve it.
When a Senior developer sees a gap in knowledge, he/she looks further than just the surface. There is a deeper understanding of every piece of code. Coding looks differently from the senior developer’s eyes.
Thinking Objectively
Junior and mid developers tend to display their extreme preferences based on personal experiences more than code related reasoning. Their individual preferences, styles, namings, and methods of thinking become the centerpiece of any suggestion or evaluation they may encounter, and that is fine. This type of thinking is a part of the process of growing up.
To make decisions more objectively, the developer has to have a wide range of experiences. There is no the right way to code, only efficient ways based on situations and scenarios, and senior developers understand this. They accept the fact that their code may not be flawless and that there for sure, is space for improvement.
Senior developers often become powerful code handymen, marking messes made by juniors and labeling the weak parts in the architecture. They can step back and see a much bigger picture and predict the future while making choices based on the least expected negative result. Rather than being bound to any style of coding or principles, they focus on finding the right solution.
Balancing Between Good and Working Software
Most developers are focusing on whether the software is working, but the seniors do it better. They know the hidden costs of technical debt or code that doesn’t scale. Senior developers can effectively balance the demands of working software with the quality of software and be ready to deliver on time or ask for an extended deadline if necessary.
They Can Teach Others
Great senior developers have a passion for coding that inspires their less experienced colleagues and helps them raise the next generation of expert developers.
There is a level of skill required to become a teacher of anything. Experience on CVs could come from different projects and length of time at various companies, but the skill of teaching has only those who truly understand their work.
Conclusion
Senior devs can be any age, from any background, and have any number of years of experience, but as long as they are true problem solvers and long term thinkers they can have well deserved Senior developer title.
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