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The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

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Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#21

Post by careersuicide »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #11
jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

>Why should we as software developers devalue our craft so much? Frankly there's too much money being made at average skill levels that don't require any degree. I don't think there's an economic incentive to go for more regulation. Better yet, there's a ton of need and some of the work is just plain easy once you do have 1-2 years. There's positions that don't directly affect life/liberty unlike law, medicine, engin…

Frankly I hope that that regulation never happens. It sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me. The biggest reason I became a programmer, besides the fact that I really enjoy programming, is that there was no one to tell me I couldn't become one. Growing up I wanted to be all sorts of things only to find out there were entrenched gatekeepers and a multitude of of barriers to each profession. For whatever reason jumping through other people's hoops (even if their existence is totally justifiable) had no appeal to me. I shudder to think of a world where kids like me grow up and find out that programming has just as many licensing requirements and regulations as everything else they might want to be. Had that been the case I probably would have ended up just working a boring retail job or something.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#22

Post by randomnumber314 »

collyw wrote: post #14
randomnumber314 wrote: post #13

In my experience a senior developer is a lesser-title for a CTO. A senior developer is someone who knows the company's mission, knows the technology, and knows the team. From there they evaluate what the board/CEO/kid with a plan want and develop a strategy to get the not-senior developers to implement that plan. Key characteristics: Not chasing every new and shiny framework/tech Singular focus on stated objectives/m…

That sounds closer to management than developer.

That's why I said 'lesser title for CTO.' They don't necessarily manage a project, so much as act as a leader for channeling communication between management and coders.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#23

Post by mafro »

j-c-h-e-n-g wrote: post #15

I have bookmarked John Allspaw's thorough writeup about this topic because I figure it's worth re-reading to internalize: http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engi... He also makes reference to the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition which is worth keeping in mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisit...

This. I've shared this definition with a number of aspiring seniors over the last few years - Allspaw describes "senior" far better than I ever could.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#24

Post by nzoschke »

jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

Because in software we build platforms that let the new developers stand on the shoulders of giants.

With Rails you can learn and build a web app in weeks. With AWS you can learn cloud architecture in months.

Spend two years focusing on the right tech, get sufficient depth, and you are an expert.

There are also infinite resources to help with this from books to blog posts to a culture of mentorsship in the work place.

Law and medicine should be so lucky.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#25

Post by moron4hire »

Dayshine wrote: post #19
moron4hire wrote: post #8

If you can't define how to hire for a senior developer, it is probably because you can't define the job of a senior developer. I know this is pretty much stated in the article, but the greater implication seems to be missed. Senior developers are those that bring definition to the undefined. I believe you don't hire people for jobs they've done, you hire people to do a job, and you ultimately fire people for not doin…

> Fire them if they prove they can't do their job. What kind of timescale would you consider reasonable for this? Because the cost of changing jobs once you have a family means anything less than 3 months is pretty unethical. Unless you tell them up front, but that's just probation, which means good luck hiring anyone.

I do not agree that it is unethical to fire someone before three months, but it's not been an issue, I've neither had to do it that early. I do think it's more unethical to keep a person in a position for which they are not suited, though, regarding your responsibilities towards the company, to the worker in question, and to their co-workers.

I am up front about the process and the possibility it could end very early. I typically suggest to them that they start at 10hrs/wk while at their current job to see if they like the work. I've not found it difficult to hire people in this way.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#26

Post by minipci1321 »

jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

I had the same reaction -- all good until that same paragraph. This kind of broke it all -- do these people understand what they are writing about?

I recall my own feeling of getting into another universe after I finally started to systematically look into the assembly code generated by the compiler, and it took me 6 years to develop the need for this.

It has been at least 5 years that I have removed 'Senior' from my LinkedIn profile ;-)

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#27

Post by ap22213 »

careersuicide wrote: post #21
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should we as software developers devalue our craft so much? Frankly there's too much money being made at average skill levels that don't require any degree. I don't think there's an economic incentive to go for more regulation. Better yet, there's a ton of need and some of the work is just plain easy once you do have 1-2 years. There's positions that don't directly affect life/liberty unlike law, medicine, engin…

Frankly I hope that that regulation never happens. It sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me. The biggest reason I became a programmer, besides the fact that I really enjoy programming, is that there was no one to tell me I couldn't become one. Growing up I wanted to be all sorts of things only to find out there were entrenched gatekeepers and a multitude of of barriers to each profession. For whatever reason jumpin…

But, on the other hand, companies are throwing away countless dollars on bad software. The problem is that it's relatively easy to write code to make something look somewhat functional, but it's a different level to complete it. The mistakes of the quick approaches take time to show, and then it becomes too late. It takes way more time and money to fix the issues, later.

This has been a debate that's been going on for decades. There's the camp that wants software to get to the rigor of other engineering domains. But, there are a lot more who don't. Personally, I think we should be cautious. Software is such a subjective and broad field that it would be harmful to emulate the methods of other engineering domains.

That said, I have seen a trend over the last decade of 'juniors' disregarding the wisdom and experience of 'seniors'. Maybe it's because we are too slow, too methodical, not well informed on what's new or recently hyped. Maybe we are more strict, more ambivalent (seeing everything as trade offs), or maybe we are just not fun. Who knows? But, it's incredibly frustrating to continuously fix poorly developed systems. It's irritating to give advice and guidance, only to have it disregarded because some celebrity consultant, blogger, or tweeter invented another silver bullet.

Contrary to what some may think, it's really not fun to be able to say, 'I told you so.'. It just means that we have another mess to clean up.

But, back to the topic at hand, when I hire a 'senior', I expect them to not require lots of guidance, make good decisions, not break anything, have a breadth of experience, be an awesome team players, be calm and tenacious, be able to pick up new things with ease, and have fundamental understanding of the whole stack, algorithms, and data structures.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#28

Post by foxbarrington »

t_fatus wrote: post #5

Make it three-dimensionalby adding a fourth circle with C-level skills and you've got the CTO diagram ! Seriously this is by far the smartest thing I've read associated with "senior developer", and can be of great use when hiring decisions need to be made.

What are some C-level skills?

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#29

Post by uola »

careersuicide wrote: post #21
FLUX-YOU wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why should we as software developers devalue our craft so much? Frankly there's too much money being made at average skill levels that don't require any degree. I don't think there's an economic incentive to go for more regulation. Better yet, there's a ton of need and some of the work is just plain easy once you do have 1-2 years. There's positions that don't directly affect life/liberty unlike law, medicine, engin…

Frankly I hope that that regulation never happens. It sounds like a dystopian nightmare to me. The biggest reason I became a programmer, besides the fact that I really enjoy programming, is that there was no one to tell me I couldn't become one. Growing up I wanted to be all sorts of things only to find out there were entrenched gatekeepers and a multitude of of barriers to each profession. For whatever reason jumpin…

The alternative solution is what we have today when large tech companies prefer to hire people from high status schools.

Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development

#30

Post by tempodox »

minipci1321 wrote: post #26
jbandela1 wrote: post #7

I liked a lot of the article until I got to >Our hiring “secret sauce” largely stems from the fact that it seems to take significantly less time for someone with leadership and community skills to develop technical skills than the other way around. I’m seeing a large number of people who graduated from code bootcamps 3 and even 2 years ago now handily and gracefully filling the role of senior developer. This statemen…

I had the same reaction -- all good until that same paragraph. This kind of broke it all -- do these people understand what they are writing about? I recall my own feeling of getting into another universe after I finally started to systematically look into the assembly code generated by the compiler, and it took me 6 years to develop the need for this. It has been at least 5 years that I have removed 'Senior' from my…

Also,

> Without a clear definition of “senior developer", we have no clear path for our own employees to get there.

This seems like an anti-pattern of circular logic to me: Why would you want to “get there” when it's unclear what “being there” even means?

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