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

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

#81

Post by noxToken »

edw519 wrote: post #73

Whatever it takes to best satisfy your customer. That's it. No, I'm not being snarky, so hear me out... I've met and worked with many developers over the years and lots of them have become very good with technology and user domains, but still have struggled to "crack the digital ceiling". These are brilliant people who have achieved serious things, but are still not recognized by the big decision makers as "senior",…

I'll drink to this comment.

Ever met that person who earned their senior title through brute force rather than commendation who can talk circles about technology and architecture surrounding the project(s), but when there's a meeting with the business folk, they sit there listlessly with no input? They're a god among humans to the dev team. They're just a voiceless workhorse to the client.

Although the name doesn't explicitly state it, I think a senior dev needs to skillfully interact with the client. Kicking ass at the keys and architecture is a given necessity. Catering to the client, delivering what is needed, truthfully and tactfully explaining why something is or isn't feasible, and all those other soft skills that many developers aren't known for is an undersold boon.

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

#82

Post by FLUX-YOU »

TurboHaskal wrote: post #26

When you are valuable and ask for a raise but they cannot give the amount expected because it's already Q4 so they give you the senior title instead. It can happen even with two years of experience.

This is why I leave Senior out of my resume for a previous position. Otherwise, someone might think I know what the hell I'm doing.

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

#83

Post by anexprogrammer »

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 necessarily what the business most needs. Needs minimal supervision, but defined goals.

* Senior developer - Will produce immediate business value if completely ignored.

The domain and language don't matter for these, really. A Senior Go developer is going to produce immediate business value if you suddenly throw him/her into a Lisp team, too. Just slower.

Between the two answers I think they have it covered. Now some businesses will call people senior after they've been there 5 years, but they might still be a junior in capability.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12557542

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

#84

Post by douche »

ghuntley wrote: post #49
EGreg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait a sec, whats the significance of Q4? How do you think the timing works?

The budget has been consumed; business focused on making financial statements look good before being released to the public market for dissemination. At large corp scale, you'll experience shenanigans such as cancelling all flights/travel (unless it has C-level approval) even if it means a loss of potential future sales revenue / blocking entire teams who end up getting paid to sit there and do nothing until the quar…

The other side of this is that departments with leftover budget will cast around wildly for anything plausible to spend it on, lest they have their budget slashed next year, "use it or lose it" style.

The company I work for has made more than a couple big sales in December from this phenomenon. Sometimes they never even deploy the software.

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

#85

Post by ErrantX »

douche wrote: post #84
ghuntley wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The budget has been consumed; business focused on making financial statements look good before being released to the public market for dissemination. At large corp scale, you'll experience shenanigans such as cancelling all flights/travel (unless it has C-level approval) even if it means a loss of potential future sales revenue / blocking entire teams who end up getting paid to sit there and do nothing until the quar…

The other side of this is that departments with leftover budget will cast around wildly for anything plausible to spend it on, lest they have their budget slashed next year, "use it or lose it" style. The company I work for has made more than a couple big sales in December from this phenomenon. Sometimes they never even deploy the software.

Trouble with salary raises are; you do effectively lose it because you can't take that raise back next year ;)

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

#86

Post by jkingsbery »

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 code that works and delivers the feature in a timely manner, they make it so the next 3 features to come out in that area can be done quickly by junior developers. Not only do they code, but they make everyone around them better coders. Not only do they code, but they also think strategically about what the team needs to keep going two years from now. Not only do they deliver the project, they get everyone excited about delivering the project.

I once read someone say "there's a difference between having ten years of experience, and having the same year of experience ten times." Time is a factor, but it's also whether you've exposed yourself broadly and deeply to new technologies, approaches and experiences so that when you are in a new situation (technical or otherwise), you have patterns for how to deal (or the self awareness to know that you don't know how to deal). So, part of it is time, but part of it is spending that time wisely.

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

#87

Post by deepwave »

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…

Don't worry about what others say or feel. You have an audience of two: yourself first and the man who writes your check.

If you are adding value, you're doing it right. You are either a cost center or a profit center. Be the profit center and you will never want for a job.

I'm almost 50 and still in the game. If I'm honest, I still worry from time to time about being irrelevant, but if I'm still adding value, and I am, then what the other IT people around me think doesn't matter. Add value, learn as you go, gain in wisdom and understanding and you will always be cash-flow positive.

Don't make the mistake that so many do that you have to be working on something cutting edge or popular. Those jobs are nice, but I've learned--at least for myself--that I prefer the maintenance jobs. I enjoy taking something and making it better, even if it's just a quick fix, like two lines of code. Own everything you do. Be proud of your work.

You're still young with plenty of time to get where you will be going. Don't be in a rush to "prove yourself" to anyone but yourself and the man writing your check. Don't listen to naysayers, don't get trapped in the mindset that only the new, darling languages are worth investing in. Good programming skills are not language specific. Learn what you can. Use the correct tool for the job. Don't be a method man. Be the profit center.

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

#88

Post by robotnoises »

Fun story, I just found out yesterday during my annual performance review than I am a Senior Software Engineer. No, not a promotion, but rather I have always been one. It was simply an HR mistake that my title did not reflect it and no one realized that I didn't know.

So to answer the original question: it is impossible to know.

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

#90

Post by collyw »

navyad wrote: post #8

sometimes these title can be dangerous.

My first (programming) job I was a senior programmer. It was an academic institute, and it was basically so i could be put into a decent junior level pay bracket.

I didn't find it in any way harmful.

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