Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#131

Post by marktangotango » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:26 PM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #120

anexprogrammer wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a question a week ago about junior developers. mrmekon [1] gave an excellent answer: It depends on when and why I'm defining it, but my guidelines are more based on how they work than what they know: * Junior developer - Will not produce much business value if left alone, and may produce nothing at all. Requires supervision. * Intermediate developer - Will produce something if left alone, but not necessaril…

I noticed a few years ago that what set me apart from my junior days was that now when I have a question, I decide what I think the best course of action is, send an email with the question and my choice, along with a statement that I'm proceeding in that direction unless someone stops me, and then start working on it. Previously, I'd either have no idea what to do with it, or just not work on that thing at all. (Usu…

Ha, and the next level is; just do it and wait for someone to tell you it's wrong, which they probably won't but you've already argued the alternatives to yourself anyway. So criticism at that point is just opinion and doesn't matter.

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#132

Post by marktangotango » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

tukelully wrote: post #42

CaRDiaK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"selecting/recommending tools and frameworks, based on what is most valuable for the business and the team" This is so true, I would say it extends to style amongst other things also. Having worked seniors on teams who had to seemingly make problems "worthy" of their skill and time served. For example working on a large OO Monoliths where a senior started to add lots of "clever" functional code. When I started the qu…

It appears worth noting to the people arguing for functional programming over OO in response to this, that this is about toxicity within the team and maturity of the developer. Not programming style in so much as I can read. It should also be mentioned that responses similar to the examples have approx. no substance, detract from the quality of the conversation, provides no value to the team, and will likely only dec…

Yes I have lived this recently, two devs competing for most clever code in an oo codebase, it was a spaghetti lava layer mess of styles, and one was the lead. Horrible experience.

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#133

Post by bokglobule » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:38 PM UTC

anexprogrammer wrote: post #83

misframer wrote: post #64

I really liked this comment by @stray [0] from a similar Ask HN from a few months ago. That thread was titled "Ask HN: What makes a Senior Dev". Mistakes, rewrites, late nights, firefights, and deadlines. Core dumps, memory leaks, hardware faults, and plain bad luck. Big O, data flow, always learning -- or out you go. Manager metrics, schedules hectic, methodology hegelian dialectic. Taking the heat, feature creep, o…

There was a question a week ago about junior developers. mrmekon [1] gave an excellent answer: It depends on when and why I'm defining it, but my guidelines are more based on how they work than what they know: * Junior developer - Will not produce much business value if left alone, and may produce nothing at all. Requires supervision. * Intermediate developer - Will produce something if left alone, but not necessaril…

I've noticed a steady movement by companies to treat anyone with X number of years of experience as "senior" rather than their capability. Your definition is far better but harder to gauge compared to years of experience (likely why they do it this way).

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#134

Post by pitaj » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 7:51 PM UTC

justinlardinois wrote: post #124

rafaquintanilha wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiosity: are you from US? Is software engineering seen as less valuable than computer science? I'm asking this because for me software engineering is a more complete discipline and would encompass pretty much everything computer science does.

In the US, degree programs actually called "software engineering" are few and far between; most software engineers who are college educated have a computer science degree. It's also worth noting that the term "software engineer" isn't regulated here, while other engineering titles are.

> term "software engineer" isn't regulated here, while other engineering titles are

No they aren't. Unlike in Canada, you can give yourself any title without actually having a license in that profession, as long as you aren't being fraudulent in your claim.

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#135

Post by kikkak » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 8:35 PM UTC

CaRDiaK wrote: post #20

bbcbasic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your definition because it is timeless and rings true. The same definition will apply in 10 or 20 years time when there are new fads in development processes, programming languages etc. I would add that the senior engineer has a mature approach to selecting/recommending tools and frameworks, based on what is most valuable for the business and the team, rather than was is cool, good for their career or whatever…

"selecting/recommending tools and frameworks, based on what is most valuable for the business and the team" This is so true, I would say it extends to style amongst other things also. Having worked seniors on teams who had to seemingly make problems "worthy" of their skill and time served. For example working on a large OO Monoliths where a senior started to add lots of "clever" functional code. When I started the qu…

Do you work at my company? This is what I experienced last year on a project being run by another team's lead developer. The system that was so poisoned with needless functional abstractions that the codebase was barely comprehensible (monoids, kleislis, higher-kinded types, dynamic types(!)). It's utter fucking rubbish. He practically mounts an invisible pulpit when he talks about why these abstractions and constructs are the "right way" and "the future." I don't know how he got "lead" in front of his title. Pretty much every junior in our group is more productive than he is.

The only consolation is that the system in question hasn't entered production yet, and probably won't for at least a year at the rate it's progressing.

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#136

Post by marktangotango » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

Shanea93 wrote: post #62

wvh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also my experience. "Senior" is little more than a random title in most companies I worked for. It can be someone in their early twenties who just happened to have worked for 2 years on one product, even if it's their first job. It's frustrating at first to join a new company as someone who is older and has many more years of experience, then you remind yourself it's just a random title and try not to get hung…

Anecdotally, I feel like this is how my older peers see me. I've been working (professionally) in this industry since I was 16 years old, I got my first job as a junior after tinkering with computers since I was 8 years old. At the age of 23, I've found it very difficult to earn the respect of the people around me because of my age. I have the title of senior developer because I've had experience working on scalabili…

Sorry, sounds a bit like you're copping an attitude here. There's a lot more to software developement than any one or two things (scaling issues? complex infrastructures?). Don't be complacent and think because you've done X, you know all about Y and Z. I once worked with a guy who started with a company at age 16, did a lot of stuff, wrote a lot of code (went to work for amazon after that actually). Turned out a lot of the things he did, although valuable in the moment to make the sale, were terrible for the long term viability of the product. This kids unguided decisions literally set the company back years when growth took off, and the app couldn't scale, and security holes were gaping.

Just be wary of thinking you know it all, this applies to everyone, regardless of age or experience.

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#137

Post by mizchief2 » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 9:38 PM UTC

When your teammates ask you questions more than you ask them questions.

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#138

Post by rabidrat » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 9:43 PM UTC

cmdrfred wrote: post #128

moron4hire wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Senior developers also learn to stop being needlessly pedantic.

You're right I am a senior developer.

I think he was saying the opposite. (Your reply seemed pretty pedantic to me).

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#139

Post by danblick » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 10:15 PM UTC

RyanHamilton wrote: post #113

wvh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also my experience. "Senior" is little more than a random title in most companies I worked for. It can be someone in their early twenties who just happened to have worked for 2 years on one product, even if it's their first job. It's frustrating at first to join a new company as someone who is older and has many more years of experience, then you remind yourself it's just a random title and try not to get hung…

>>If someone like Donald Knuth would be forced due to economic circumstances to join a trendy web start-up, he'd be a junior working under a twenty-something senior with little more than some Javascript and MongoDB knowledge To play devils advocate, why wouldn't Donald Knuth be the junior given that scenario? In that position he may actually know less relevant knowledge than the junior. I mean many startup/crud apps…

There's also "firm-specific human capital". Some knowledge is hard to bring with you.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/firm-specific-human-capital

Re: Ask HN: When are you considered a “senior” programmer?

#140

Post by paulcole » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

misframer wrote: post #64

I really liked this comment by @stray [0] from a similar Ask HN from a few months ago. That thread was titled "Ask HN: What makes a Senior Dev". Mistakes, rewrites, late nights, firefights, and deadlines. Core dumps, memory leaks, hardware faults, and plain bad luck. Big O, data flow, always learning -- or out you go. Manager metrics, schedules hectic, methodology hegelian dialectic. Taking the heat, feature creep, o…

Unfortunately this is glorifying a lot of terrible practices.

People who work in environments with, for example, "pressure -- lots of pressure" often end up not realizing there's another option that's actually a lot healthier for them, their coworkers, and their organization.

Senior professionals avoid all of that nonsense like the plague and would never glorify it. Senior people are professionals who work efficiently and effectively.