Understand exactly how development fits into the rest of the business, it will vary for every company. The art of scalability is a good book to read to get started.
Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
41–50 of 136 posts
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#42You must be great fun at parties.
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#43I think everyone in this thread is wrong. There is one thing I look for any time someone is looking to increase seniority in the organization and that's ownership. How much responsibility can you own with minimal oversight? Will you seek out the resources you need? Will you remove blockers. Will you do what you say? Will you get others to help you? Some people do this by producing lots of code and some of them do it by clearly documenting needs and concerns and getting others to be more productive. Usually it's both.
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#44You must be great fun at parties.
I wouldn't know. As I said, I don't have the free time for those. :P
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#45Depends on what kind of dev you are talking about. In a consulting shop (enterprise or web dev or advertising)? Big company (software, hardware or where software dev is an expense)? Game company? Silicon Valley startup? Senior devs in each of these types of companies have some skills in common and some that are particular. The common ones, in my opinion: * Ability to communicate with non technical folks * Ability to…
Willingness to do grunt work is a fast track to becoming a manager who says "I haven't coded in years". No good deed goes unpunished. When you step up to be a team player and do that grunt work, you open yourself up to getting more and more of it. Next thing you know you have to stand up for yourself or become a door mat.
You certainly have to be careful not to become a door mat but I agree that grunt work is where it's at.
* Deal with difficult users or customers
* Write documentation
* Go back and forth between different stakeholders to make sure everybody is on the same page
* Make sure other developers have the right tools and equipment
Depending on the manager he could be doing this but if he doesn't the senior Dev has to do it or the project fails
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#46There's a lot of great specific examples in this thread but I think it all boils down to this one quality; being able to put your own ego aside. I think what lets a developer graduate from one level to the next is realizing that your own knowledge, vision, etc. is limited and not always the right way to go. Being able to put your own desires aside and execute someone else's vision while still providing the benefit of…
I agree with this to an extent, but a controlled burst of ego can sometimes signal to the rest of the business that they're deeply off-track: "I/my team are better than spending time realising this ridiculous requirement/deadline/anti-feature, and we're just not going to do it. You need to re-think this".
I don't recommend doing it too often (no-one wants a reputation for being precious or difficult), but used correctly it can be powerful.
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#47I think everyone in this thread is wrong. There is one thing I look for any time someone is looking to increase seniority in the organization and that's ownership. How much responsibility can you own with minimal oversight? Will you seek out the resources you need? Will you remove blockers. Will you do what you say? Will you get others to help you? Some people do this by producing lots of code and some of them do it…
Empathy can play a significant role in seeking the resources you need, getting others to help you and perhaps even allowing higher management entrusting responsibility on your shoulders.
Over the long-term though I found grit to be a more useful skill to cultivate. Patience and perseverance sound like cliche, but in the end whether in relationships or life, those count the most.
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#48There are a lot of comments here that are under the umbrella of getting old and sticking with the same company which are probably true for a lot of subpar companies. If you're talking about a good company that has a lot of good engineers to choose from I would look for:
- The ability to communicate clearly
- The ability to understand team members with empathy
- A unique penchant for foresight
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
People ask me that all the time and it's awkward. I very rarely do anything anyone else would consider "fun", even on weekends. Most of what I do can be classified as "work".
You don't have to talk about things that other people think are fun. The point is to bring up something that can get you excited and animated. If what you call "work" does that for you, then I'd love to hear about it.
You might like to hear about such things, but most people only want to hear about weekend activities they consider "fun" (e.g., going out drinking) or "normal" (e.g., doing stuff with the kids). If you say you spent the weekend learning something new, most people will act like you're boring and perhaps even make nasty comments like "you must be fun at parties" (like someone in this thread did).
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#50Being the last man standing. Seems sad but when people leave bad company, usually the people who stay get promoted and some of them become senior developer. I have seen this strange pattern a few times.
Why strange? Staying there when difficulties arise, future become incertain, keep working when it becomes boring or very messy or unrewarding, being able to do the work of the designer or the project manager because they are gone, all these are proofs that you are reliable and able. I would certainly choose such a guy for a senior position.