Tag: soft skills

Becoming a senior developer part 0

January 2, 2026 /

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.

Mistakes are a good thing

October 29, 2020 /

If you make a bad mistake you’ve proved two things to the people you’re working with:

  1. You aren’t sitting around doing nothing
  2. You can learn

Many years ago I read a story about a man who had cost the company he worked for several million dollars. He managed to do some other things that mitigated the loss, but there was still a loss of a couple of hundred thousand bucks.

He glumly told his boss what had happened and how he had managed to claw back a good chunk of the cash.

He was very surprised when he wasn’t fired.

Why didn’t you fire me?

Why would I? I just spent 200k training you how to manage risk!

There we have it. If you can take a breath, look at what caused the mistake, and why, and how to reduce the chance of it happening again, you’ve come out ahead.

Don’t let the fear of mistakes paralyse you. If you’re junior you won’t have been put in a place where you can do any serious damage if you’re working for people with any sense. If you’re senior, well, there’s always something new you need to learn.

The newbie super power

October 29, 2020 /

If you’re new or junior in your job you can sometimes find yourself paralysed by how little you know. This can come from two different places:

  • Context. There are so many choices you don’t know where to start.
  • Fear. Your ignorance means you don’t know what to do to even try to start.

You can fix both of these by using your newbie super power:

Ask questions.

We’ve been taught in school that you’re not supposed to cheat, you’re just supposed to know things and teacher will be angry if you don’t. You were taught that cribbing from other people is bad.

But real life, in a real job, is not an exam. Everyone, selfishly, needs you to become productive and be able to make a contribution. The only way that can happen is if you ask what they need you to do. If you don’t understand, ask again. I would try something first, just so you have something to talk about and learn from, but asking is a super power.

Watch the people who are senior. They listen, and they ask. This is a superpower you need to master.