A long time ago I wrote a short pamphlet 3 key skills you need to master to become a senior developer. This is the introduction to that pamphlet, the other parts will follow over the next few weeks.
At the beginning of your career you want to progress to the next stage. You start either as a junior developer, sometimes a graduate, and then magically transition to being a developer without much change to your approach.
The next step in the chain is senior developer. One of the questions I used to see the most on Quora is how do I become a senior developer?
So, what makes you senior?
- You can tackle difficult problems.
- You can pull a team together.
- You can talk to customers in their language.
- You can create good quality solutions quickly and accurately.
- You can manage customer expectations and keep them satisfied.
If you look carefully at this short list one thing stands out. While technical skills are a still requirement here, the underlying theme is one of using those skills while making sure what you deliver fits the needs of your customers properly.
These are often called soft skills. While they are a bit more abstract than understanding syntax, or which algorithm to pick, or how to reformat some CSS to look like the design, they can still be learned. They are not that soft, either, but very practical when you look more widely. Seniority means having that wider view.
In the next part of this series I will look into these things in more detail.