Four Myths about being a Senior Developer
Whenever we hear about “senior software developer”, widely different meaning of this term would come into our minds. This story is not about the qualities of a senior software developer. But it approaches this term in another way. Like every other term in software engineering, seniority has its own myths!
Being a good software developer is enough
The short answer is that is not. Being a good and knowledgeable software developer in your stack is a must to become a senior software developer, But its not enough. There are non technical qualities that required for being a senior software developer among which communicating well, being smiling, have a passion for sharing his/her knowledge with others, having a finisher mind-set, are the most significant ones.
Not being a senior means your not good enough
Actually it means that maybe you are not good enough in some aspects to get the senior tag in your company. But skill level is a very relative concept, specially between wide variety of companies. Being a senior in Google and being a senior in a non tech company are the same job titles, between which there are big differences in depth and kind of the knowledge required.
Seniority and management are the same
Absolutely not! This is the worst myth I’ve heard till now. Although sometimes a good path for being a software development manager is starting off with technical roles like senior software developer or technical lead, but it doesn’t mean that the seniors of the team are the managers of it. These roles may need different qualifications. Event sometimes promoting a tech lead to a management role would be a huge mistake!
Seniority is a universal fact
Like I said before, being a senior developer highly depends on your current employer. You couldn't be a universal senior software developer. Seniority in software development is more of a context related title, the context can be a company, community or something else. But there always must be a context present. Somebody can be a Senior software developer at Google, but couldn’t be a Senior software developer in general.
To sum up, some day you might haven't got the praise of being senior software developer! But remember, lack of soft skills is likely the reason by which you stood away from the throne!
