5 Signs of a Senior Developer

Being a senior developer comes with a lot more than just writing fast and efficient code. Some developers manage to get to the senior level in 3 years while others manage to do it in a decade — and some will never reach the senior level. It’s perfectly possible for someone to be a senior developer even if they are below 25 years of age. Being a senior doesn’t mean you must have 10+years of experience in coding and above 30 years of age. What it comes down to is the skillset that you have.
Here are 5 signs that tell you if someone is a senior developer or not.

Coding

Coding might be the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about a senior developer. We picture the senior developer as a coding guru in our minds who have a solution to all of our coding problems. yes, this is true but don’t you think this is something that a junior developer can also do?

A senior developer knows that there are some other things too that should be taken into account. A senior developer knows how to write scalable code, has the ability to write proper tests, and keeps security and performance in mind. A senior developer will always use a proper naming convention and he/she understand that every file/line/character is a liability, so being concise is important. The less you type, the less you have to test, maintain, debug, refactor, rewrite, etc

Mentoring

Let’s say there is “someone” who can write highly scale-able, well-optimized and secure code at 10x speed. Can we say he/she is a senior developer? Aaah I guess no? unless they are mentoring the junior developers in the team. Doing everything yourself and not helping the team members can only slow down the overall progress. Mentoring and helping the junior developers can increase the overall team speed and work quality.
A senior developer keeps in mind that we’re all in this together. They Celebrate the wins whether big or small and If somebody is struggling the senior developer is always there to help.

Great Communication Skills

Some people picture the programmers as a type of species who just sits behind a desk with a computer and something with a high amount of caffeine. This could be true about other developers but the senior developer must be a good communicator. When it comes to communication with clients you’ll often see a senior developer handling it. The senior developer can understand the problems that the client has and is able to come with a plan to solve these problems.

Decision Making

A senior developer will always thoroughly think about what he/she is doing? Senior developers know that their is more than just the technical aspect of the project. They know and search about economical factors of the project. They can help the team lead in avoiding the project creep with their research and input in the project.
A senior will always question to himself/herself why are we building this? why are we using this framework? they know when it’s better to use a library or re-write some code from that library.

Always Learning

No matter how skilful a developer is, If they are not learning about new frameworks/languages, they are not spending time on soft skills and they are not willing to learn other relevant skills i.e basics of UI/UX, Project Management, Software Quality Assurance or any other skills etc then they will soon be dethroned from the position of a senior developer. The software industry is rapidly changing and to keep up with this industry you must be always learning new skills. Also learning new skills are important for career advancements and promotions.

Conclusion

A Senior developer is not someone who is only good at coding but someone who is also great at communication, willing to mentor junior developers, can help in making important decisions for a project, knows what he doesn’t know and have a learning attitude.

Do you think we missed an important trait of a senior developer? do let us know via comments.