How do I know that I am now a senior engineer? If I am not, what do I do to become one? We get this question often in the developer community.
Well, there aren’t any widely accepted benchmarks for senior engineers. There is no one industry-wide definition of a senior software engineer.
It may have anything to do with your years of working in my own opinion. Of course, there are notable differences that engineering managers and technical leads will look out for when deciding on whom to hire or promote for senior-level engineering roles.
But let's even find out, what a company means when they say they are looking for senior engineers.
The idea of developing a software application in itself is problem-solving. When a company is in search of a developer it simply means that they have a business problem that only technology can solve and need experienced engineers who can interpret their business problem into an actual software application. This is where the experience of a senior software engineer comes to play.
A senior software engineer is one a company can hire and trusts to take a confidential business problem or logic, put it into a box of code, and flesh it into a real-world application.
They are not necessarily people that write bug-free code. It is almost an impossible standard for them to achieve.
They are not super humans that know everything about coding. No. Senior engineers admit easily when they don’t know something because they have been around long enough to realize that they cannot know everything themselves. They are usually honest about what they do and don’t know.
As a senior engineer, you are trusted to execute tasks on your own with little or no supervision. You know exactly when to use technology and when not to use it. You have access to a repository of tools- libraries, and frameworks you can use to accomplish a project fast.
So how can you become a senior Engineer?
One of the first ingredients to becoming a senior software engineer is to be an excellent problem solver. I am not talking about solving algorithmic questions on Leetcode.
As an Engineer, you write code to solve both human & business problems. Problem-solving ability will come naturally to you as practice and exposure yourself to different software projects.
Secondly, be good at developing the architecture for software projects. A bricklayer will not just jump into laying bricks for a building without a proper architectural design so also you wouldn’t want to start coding software without a solid plan.
You use your programming knowledge to firstly plan a high-level design of the intended software and ensure that all features are captured.
and lastly, be a good team player and be effective in communicating within and across your teams. You should have strong technical communication skills so that you can pass your knowledge to others.
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