On the road to becoming a Senior Developer
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If you are working in software development for some time, you are probably dreaming of that Senior Developer title. You work and learn every day, and push your boundaries to achieve a higher status.
Becoming a senior takes a lot of time, practice, and experience. And there is a pleiad of articles to help you with tracing the path to becoming a senior.
In this article, we’ve crunched those texts into a roadmap and made it a shorter digest for you to read. You’ll find both technical and practical things you should know, and advise from other seniors.
We will also focus on two things: Soft Skills and Hard Skills.
Soft Skills
Problem-solving
As a senior developer, you should be able to be cautious, pragmatically, and practical.
Being a senior, you will probably be seen as a ‘reality check’ in your team, so many less experienced devs will rely on you. You should be able to find the problem and solve it in a pragmatical manner, and think about the impact of your code in the long term.
Being and having a mentor
Having a mentor of your own is a piece of advice you will find in every blog post and read from every experienced coworker. Or any serious professional in any field of work, for that matter. But it goes beyond that.
First, find a good mentor or a mentorship network. Senior developers should just be great at coding, they should have good interpersonal skills. You’ll need someone to mentor you to be able to develop these skills, and that person should already have them.
Another reason you will need a mentor is that you will probably have situations in which you will need help. Working with a network or mentor will enable you to rely on their support and feedback.
Lastly, you should be able to provide mentorship to other developers of lesser seniority. Empower other developers to be better in what they do. Help them with constructive criticism, teach them, practice with them.
Having a business mindset
Many companies will expect their senior to be able to “see the big picture”. That means that you should know more than just the technology you create. You should have some business knowledge — how things work and how to meet KPIs. You should also be able to understand the user and how to provide value to the people who use your product. And of course, you should be superior in the technology you use to build something that will last a long time.
This is arguably a skill and more of a mindset thing. You might not be a businessman at heart, but at least try to understand these processes.
“T-Shaped Knowledge”
Here is how Wikipedia defines T shaped knowledge: “The vertical bar on the letter T represents the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field, whereas the horizontal bar is the ability to collaborate across disciplines with experts in other areas and to apply knowledge in areas of expertise other than one’s own.”
It is a really useful concept for a developer because you probably have to dive deep in all areas of development and being able to collaborate with peers.
Set your goals and stick to them
The people at your workplace should know that becoming a senior developer is the path you want. It might seem strange, but talk to your team leaders, CTO, or people in HR, and tell them that you see your career moving in that direction. Let your goals be known because otherwise, no one will assume what you want.
Hard skills
Be comfortable and proficient in the tools you use
You will see many articles telling you you should be quick in typing. Typing fast doesn’t make you a better developer. But knowing the tools you use inside out, and feeling comfortable with using them, will help you a lot.
That just means you’re a master of your trade and you are past the online tutorials to help you get your work done.
Learn new technologies
New technologies are springing up and changing up the job landscape. Though it is advisable to be the best at what you already know, instead of being a “jack of all trades, master of none”, you should at least be familiar with new technologies to prove you have an admirable and broad portfolio and skill set.
Side projects
Working on side projects is helpful for many reasons, but the most important ones are these:
First, it will help you learn a new skill or work in a different team/setting. It’s a change of pace and surroundings that will definitely teach you some lessons.
The other thing is the experience. Programming skills aren’t measured in projects done, but all programming in total makes you more experienced. And, lastly, it’s fun. You can work on a side project that is completely different from what you usually do.
Books
You should read the classics — Pragmatic Programming, Clean Code, Knuth, etc.
