Tag: work

What is a Senior Developer?

I’ve been hiring, firing, and working with developers of all sorts for the last couple of decades.  In those years, I realized that each developer is very unique – their strong and weak sides, knowledge gaps, working rhythm, social interaction, communication abilities, etc.  But regardless of how unique each developer is, it is often useful to group them into expertise levels, like junior and senior.  Companies do that for a variety of reasons – billing rates, expectations, training required, responsibility, etc.

And this is where things get tricky.  One needs a good definition of what a senior developer is (other definitions can be derived from this one one too).  There is no standard definition that everybody agrees upon, so each one has their own.

I mostly consider a senior developer to be self-sufficient and self-motivated.  It’s somebody who has the expertise to solve, or find ways of solving any kind of technical problems.  It’s also someone who can see the company’s business needs and issues, and can find work to do, even if nothing has been recently assigned to him.  A senior developer would also provide guidance and mentorship to the junior teammates. I’ve also came to believe that people with the real expertise have no problem discussing complex technical issues in simple terms, but that’s just a side note.

Anyway, recently, I came across this very short blog post, which sent me a spree of pages, charts, and discussions:

Because of this “What is a senior developer?” conversation on Reddit, I am reminded of the Construx Professional Development Ladders, as mentioned to me long ago by Alejandro Garcia Fernandez. Here is a sample ladder for developers.

The original article for the Reddit discussion – “The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development” is absolutely brilliant.  In the beginning it provides a chart of the conjoined triangles of senior-level development, which reflects my definition and understanding:

conjoined

But it doesn’t stop there. It dives deeper into the problem, and, eventually features this Venn diagram:

venn

.. and more.  By now, I’ve read the article three times, but I keep coming back to it – it just makes me think and rethink over and over again.  Once it settles in my head a bit, I’ll look deeper into the Professional Development Ladder and it’s example application to the senior developer.

Overall, this is a very thought provoking bunch of links.

Why Some People Get Promoted (And Others Don’t)

I enjoyed reading the article “Why Some People Get Promoted (And Others Don’t)“.  Unlike many other in this domain, it is simple, direct, and to the point.  TLDR version:

  1. Do great things.
  2. Tell people.

There are quite a few links to external resources, with research and insightful quotes.  Here are a couple of my favorite bits:

‘[S]ent does not mean received’ is a profound thing. Half of your job in this studio is doing your work, the other half of your job is communicating that it’s been done. Because if you do it, and I don’t hear about it, how do I know what’s going on? I’m not trying to control everything, but in an intimate work environment, where we’re really trying to develop something complex, a nod, saying, ‘I got it,’ helps move things along.

And this part, which resonates with my inner blogger:

Asking for help is part of getting better at your job.

3. Work where people can see you.

Gaining visibility might require going outside your office. Maybe you have a side project, or maybe your work culture isn’t a healthy environment to pursue visibility.

Promoting yourself doesn’t have to be on someone else’s terms. Write a book, start a blog, make a side-project, collaborate with new people outside of work, or speak at panels and conferences. Tell people about what you’ve done, what you’re doing, why it’s important, and how you did it. Give talks, teach others, raise your hand for new projects.

Bad project

CommitStrip nails one of the ways of getting into a bad project …

bad project

I remember reading an interview with Matt Mullenweg (though can’t seem to find a reference now), where he said that this sort of thing happened with Automattic.  People were asking them for commercial support, but they didn’t want to do it, so they started with an insane amount of like $5,000 per month and all of a sudden found themselves with a queue of people outside.

And they were not alone, of course.

Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results 2016

Stack Overflow published the results of their developer survey for 2016.  Over 50,000 participants from more than 170 countries answered the questions this time around.  Some of the results are quite predictable, while others less so.

education