Being a good senior developer

You don’t need a title or position to be one.

4 min readNov 5, 2017

New developers will make mistakes and it’s kinda good.

You already know it. They have less experience than you. It’s obvious they are going to stuck at that two-minute task for a day long, but we still expect them to complete everything on the first try. If they fail we laugh at them or get angry with them which results in our juniors low motivation. Here comes the principal

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

And this line is as much as powerful and true as it’s sound. Let our juniors make mistakes that’s how they gonna learn, that’s how you learned. If they fail in solving a problem give them a hint of the solution or the approach they should take in order to solve the problem. Encourage them to explore more and help them whenever they got stuck.

Your pretty code will to be ruined but that’s okay

As a developer, we love our code. It’s our everything. I love my code I can understand the feeling. When you have to assign a task to you juniors in your beloved project your brain will refuse to let them in. Your brain will do everything to ensure that your code stays in your hand. The right thing to do will be delegating your tasks. Letting your juniors take over the project.

When you will let them handle things that you handle a beautiful thing will happen. There will be a new energy in your project. There will be new methods and new approaches to solving problems. They will point out and ask you why you did that quick and nasty fix? isn’t there a better way to approach the problem then this fix?

They will be terrible at first but eventually, they will learn and you will find that delegating task is easier and helpful in the long term.

Always listen to your junior developers what they have to say.

Listen to them, they should feel heard. They are excited to dive in. They got new ideas and fresh way of approaching a problem. They will ask you silly questions you never thought about. They have so much to explore and maybe they find something you should know about but you didn’t.

If you listen to them they will feel heard. If they feel heard they will give more input with more enthusiasm. If you listen to them you will motivate them to explore and gain more knowledge which will help them to shape their perspective better and solve the bigger problem easily.

You don’t need a title or position to be one

Yes, you don’t have to be a team leader, project manager or the guy that manages everything. In our modern world, we are free to express who we are. In the fast-paced environment of software development industry, you have to learn fast and you have to train people fast.

No matter what position you are in, it becomes your responsibility to train people, help them and teach them. Take responsibility of training people and working together with your junior to build better teams.

Make them laugh.

I learned this from a senior developer at work from another department. It is a simple and very effective trick. Approach your juniors with a smile on your face, greet them and talk to them with a smile.

A developer who will be working with us for the first time is scared and shy at first and this is because the system we live in. We fear from people with power and authority because this is what we taught to do.

We as a Senior and a Leader has the responsibility to change this phenomenon. Make them laugh, make them feel the joy and the energy of the workplace they are working in. They will be more than happy to see you again, ask things from you and requesting you to help them out. Every Monday they will know that there is a smiling face waiting for them rather than an angry one and you know what ? it will make them feel good.

Hi, My name is Manoj Singh Negi. I am a Javascript Developer and writer sharing my world view with everyone. Join my quest by following me at Twitter or Medium.

I am available to give a public talk or for a meetup hit me up at justanothermanoj@gmail.com if you want to meet me.

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Peace.