It’s more than just the number of years of experience

There is no clear line between a Junior Developer and a Senior Developer. And it’s not just the years of experience that matter. Your designation might be ‘Senior Developer’, but are you really worthy of the title.

I understand it is not easy to define the criteria. But the real question is do you feel you can perform all the tasks that a senior developer does.

The transition from a Junior Developer to a Senior Developer does not happen overnight, it’s a process that takes time.

In order to make yourself worthy of a Senior Developer title, you should develop the following skills.

Go beyond writing code

When you start your career, you have a lot of enthusiasm to write a lot of code. Many developers have a tendency to ignore everything and directly jump to code.

What you need to realize is writing code is a part of the bigger process. There are other parts of the process that are important too. Design, if this is done right coding becomes easy. Well, you need to participate in architecting and designing a solution to move ahead. You need to match the technical solutions to business needs as well. This is one of the best attributes of a Senior developer.

Try to find a solution yourself

In my years of experience in the industry, I have noticed that junior developers are generally restless and want a solution quickly. That search for a solution leads them to a senior developer and then the senior helps the junior to find the solution The junior ends up only implementing the solution provided by the senior.

There is nothing wrong with this, this is how people learn. But when you want to grow in your career, you need to show maturity and try to find the solutions yourself and then present them to the seniors and take their advice.

Take responsibility

Senior developers are accountable for the part of the project they are working on.

Be responsible for your part of the project. Take pride in what you do. Be proactive in making the project successful and timely deliveries.

Look at the bigger picture

When you are deep into the code, you overlook the bigger picture. You overlook how the overall project, product, or business gets affected by it.

It’s not easy for the developer in the beginning to understand the whole project and the impact of his module. You should try to get a basic understanding of everything happening around you. This is not deep knowledge, just keep your eyes and ears open.

Go deep in your domain

Writing code is fun and exciting, but you should put some effort to deepen your knowledge in your domain. Be it cloud, front-end, firmware, or any other domain, there is a whole ecosystem that makes your project work.

Senior Developers understand the whole ecosystem. You should learn the whole ecosystem to build a complete solution.

Real Experience

Of course, experience matters. I have seen developers promoted to Senior Developer designation just based on years of experience. But what really matters is “Real hands-on experience”.

Just adding the number of years of experience will not help you in long run. Quality of experience makes big difference over time.

You should try to grab quality work early on in your career. Put your heart and soul into it. It will put you on the path of excellence.

Wrapping it up

Designations don’t matter. Yes, it’s true. Designations are illusions created by organizations to make you happy. If you don’t believe me look at the banks, there are so many Assistant Managers, AVPs, etc.

You should never run behind the designations, but at the same time increase your knowledge in your domain.

Being a Senior developer means, improving your problem-solving capabilities and having deep knowledge in your field.