The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
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Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#2[deleted]
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#3I really liked this! I will also have to think on it more.
However, I think you sell the initial idea short - that seniority DOES ultimately boil down to direction required / direction provided.
The only place this summary would fall short are in those people who can bust out anything on their own in record time, but have trouble with teams... and even they provide direction, if only by setting a technical direction/example.
When you expand to the venn diagram, you're elaborating on the kinds of direction that can required or provided, but that core remains - that ultimately, seniority happens as you go from needing direction to providing it.
Now, within in different industries, the points within each circle can change (compare startups, where now is better than perfect, to industrial plants, where perfect is better than now, to research, where now and perfect are sacrificed to hard and novel).
I'd say it's even likely that, given a different culture and/or problem domain and/or ???, you get different circles entirely - although it's hard to argue with "ability to do the job", "ability to work with others" and "ability to cause direction". What are things that don't fit into one of those?
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#4I really liked this! I will also have to think on it more. However, I think you sell the initial idea short - that seniority DOES ultimately boil down to direction required / direction provided. The only place this summary would fall short are in those people who can bust out anything on their own in record time, but have trouble with teams... and even they provide direction, if only by setting a technical direction/…
Although, thinking on it more - seniority (in a category, rather than overall) being defined by "providing versus needing direction" misses the axis of receptivity to outside direction. Think of the over-eager "junior" dev too full of ideas to hear anyone else's, or the "senior" dev to full of knowledge to accept any more...
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#5Make 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.
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#6"Senior developer" is a job title. Think of it as army ranks, each national army might have their own names and ways or promoting others.
Some people also argue what is the difference between calling yourself coder, programmer, software developer and software engineer, and even taking the debate as far as questioning if a software engineer is an actual engineer.
To be honest, these debates are sort of empty unless there is clear regulation and disambiguation around what seniority is. You can define seniority in many ways.
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#7I 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 statement makes me concerned that they have greatly devalued technical skills. There are not a whole lot of areas where we would consider a three month course plus 2 years experience anywhere close to being senior. According to http://www.plumbingapprenticeshipshq.com/how-to-become-a-jou... to become a journeyman plumber (mid-level) requires a 4-5 year apprenticeship!
When technical ability is devalued so much in a company, there is a real danger that this turns into a Dunning-Kruger clique, where "senior" developers that have been programming for 2.5 years automatically favor hiring experienced business people over experienced developers (remember you can turn someone who has never programmed into a senior developer in a little over 2 years)
Think about law, medicine, engineering, or the military. We would never call a lawyer that started training 3 years ago a senior attorney. A doctor after 4 years of medical school is called an intern and basically expected to mess stuff up. As mentioned above, even a plumber with 3 years of experience is an apprentice. Why should we as software developers devalue our craft so much?
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#8If 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 doing their jobs. What they did in the past might have zero bearing on what the person is capable of doing. A resume only tells you how good they are at writing resumes (especially if you don't follow up and confirm it, and who has time for that?)
Admit that the criteria is undefined, and stop trying to have control where there is none. Put people on the job without interviewing then [0]. Fire them if they prove they can't do their job. But I think it is much more likely that you will find yourself surprised by a person stepping up to the challenge presented to them.
The job doesn't care how you found the candidate to do it. You don't really have any control, anyway. So quit wasting time (and money) on the process.
[0] at least, not in this way. I prescreen candidates for general intelligence and social graces. We do not hire people who think it's ok to tell racist jokes at parties. Unfortunately, this is a recurring issue.
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#9I 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…
Them gauging technical competence solely through personality traits like "curiosity", "discipline" and "fearlessness" raises a red flag.
Re: The Conjoined Triangles of Senior-Level Development
#10I 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…
Seems like they're describing what I think of as a project manager, albeit one blessed with enough technical skill to provide well-informed leadership of a project, including working with the senior developer.