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

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

#141

Post by rezashirazian » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 10:55 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…

Intermediate developer - Will produce something if left alone, but not necessarily what the business most needs. Needs minimal supervision, but defined goals. Senior developer - Will produce immediate business value if completely ignored.

The difference between these two do not seem to be related to technical ability but rather being able to detect 'business value' within the organization's general business model.

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

#142

Post by stevesun21 » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 11:23 PM UTC

I think a lot of programmers stucked into programming language/framework trap – keep learn new lanaguages and new frameworks to make yourself believe you have more exp, but this just make your skill more like learn drive different brand cars. Even myself in this trap for really long time.

The true power to make you senior is how you train your brain to think and abstract. This will boost your capability of design rather than just coding

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

#143

Post by Terr_ » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 11:28 PM UTC

captn3m0 wrote: post #61

>The final stage of programmer evolution is the Finder. These folks are considered experts in their chosen domain (and are prudent about others). Writing Finder job descriptions is an exercise in futility. As my boss put it: “I can’t tell you the specifics of what you’ll be doing here because your first task will be to figure that out.” A Finder will be able to anticipate problems before they happen, usually because…

Reminds me of Cringely's metaphor of "Commandos, Infantry, and Police" [0]. Not quite the same, though: The military analogy assumes that there are a fundamental tradeoffs between strengths and weaknesses (esp. getting-it-done vs. doing-it-right.) In contrast, it looks like "Finders" aren't described as having any particular weaknesses relative to Implementors.

[0] https://blog.codinghorror.com/commandos-infantry-and-police/

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

#144

Post by justinlardinois » Thu, Sep 29, 2016, 11:31 PM UTC

pitaj wrote: post #134

justinlardinois wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

According to Wikipedia, some US states regulated some engineering titles. It's not really specific but here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_en...

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

#145

Post by Prad » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 12:19 AM UTC

Senior developer is just very difficult to define. You could define it based on the amount of time worked at a certain job, your skills, your ability to mentor. The definition could be different for various businesses and their employees.

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

#146

Post by aisofteng » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 4:54 AM UTC

Based on my experience at about five different successful companies, a senior engineer is not someone who has a title declaring them as such but is a person you go to when considering something completely new that needs to be created from scratch because you know he could do it if asked to, do it in a way that will leave something another team can pick up if necessary, and do it well.

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

#147

Post by wmu » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 7:21 AM UTC

I like this joke: A junior programmer thinks he knows everything. An intermediate programmer thinks he knows nothing. A senior programmer hates computers.

> But I feel like I'm always a step behind the rest.

Don't look at things in this way, low self-esteem is the worst you can get. There are always people better than us, but their skills and knowledge weren't conjured up. Even extremely talented people need time to learn. And if you don't feel like learning new things may make you better, why to feel guilty? If you're not a Java programmer, why to feel bad because you don't know Spring or other details perfectly? You wrote you do things fast and correctly. So you're better than, say, 90% developers who work slow and produce crap. :)

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

#148

Post by aryamaan » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 10:59 AM UTC

jkingsbery wrote: post #86

As others have said, if you're asking about the title specifically, it depends on the company. I was one of those "Senior" developers when I was in my mid twenties at a start-up, whereas for my current company it's actually pretty hard to get the title "Senior Software Development Engineer." My experience is generally the people I recognize as having deserved the title don't _simply_ just code. Not only do they write…

So, how come one gets so many years of experience?

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

#149

Post by klibertp » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 11:35 AM UTC

jkot wrote: post #9

In my experience: - you are technically competent - can handle design aspects of full stack (backend, persistence, frontend) - have enough credibility and confidence to say NO to business people - you can lead a small team of developers (2 to 5 people)

> - have enough credibility and confidence to say NO to business people

This is the most important part. Other points you mention are about your skills and you can learn them. This one, however, is in major part about your reputation, which you need to earn.

Going a step further, I'd say you're a "Senior" as soon as people around you start to treat you as one. You can be very knowledgeable but that won't be enough if you can't prove to others that your knowledge is relevant and solid.

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

#150

Post by rufius » Fri, Sep 30, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #105

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…

This is very much the perspective I have taken over the years. When I'm hiring a senior developer, I'm looking for someone who will step in and own the project they're given. If I had to pick a single expression, especially one recognizable to this crowd, I would say it is someone who can execute. I also tend to view senior developers almost as internal consultants (good ones) because they should be willing and able…

With regard to your last comment about hiring senior devs with experience in the stack: I would say it depends on what you're hiring for and your long term vision for your team I think.

In my team's case, I was hired to do ML/BigData but had no prior experience. My boss's philosophy is that he wants smart engineers with a desire to learn more than he wants area experts. He's been burned more than once with area experts who were unable to pivot well with the shifting priorities of the team.

That said - if you're hiring someone to come be your ML expert then that requires an expert. Tech stacks are less that way in my opinion and they're rarely static. Even the debugging and troubleshooting tends to be similar if you know the problem space.