Ask HN: What's the Different Between a Senior and a Regular Developer?

How do you categorize Senior, Junior or Regular developers? Is it production-experience, languages/frameworks knowledge or knowing best-practices?

Looking forward to hear from you guys.

First, the apprentice learns how to use the tools to build something.

Then a journeyman can use the tools and a team to build anything.

Finally a master can build the tools, build the team, and build anything including their own workshop.

A senior dev is someone who should have good (hands-on) experience and can give hints/inputs on the way junior/new developer should write the code. you can even become senior by staying in 1 company for long time without learning anything new in terms of tech, so sometimes junior/new dev knows more than senior person. good environment should have mix of talented and average developers that way they all will learn.

or sometimes its just a title (in some orgs. a fresher right out of college is given sr. analyst title :) )

Junior Developer - Needs to be managed everyday or at least most days. - Has a narrow view of their job, its all about the code. - Spends most of their time thinking about how to write code at the level of individual functions. - Regularly gets stuck and needs technical input.

Regular Developer - Needs to be managed once per week. - Writing actual code has become automatic. - Thinks about designing whole modules of code. - Considers trade-offs/code patterns/best practice. - Occasionally gets stuck and needs input.

Senior Developer - Only needs managing occasionally. - Thinks about the business problem being solved. - Managing expectations and requirements is hardest part of job. - Helps solve problems of Junior/Regular developers.

"Speculative Masons use the ashlar in two forms: one rough, just as it came from the quarry, representing Man in his ignorant, uncultivated state; and the other, finely finished and ready for its place in the building, represents Man, educated and refined."