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Possible Duplicate:
Whats the difference between Entry Level/Jr/Sr developers?

I'm curious what senior developer means because apparently the definition doesn't mean what I thought it would. I keep seeing these teens at 22-23 years old who call themselves senior X developer or senior Y developer. To me, a senior must have 10 years or so experience in programming to call himself 'senior'. I've seen a lot of these teens here (hence the question). Am I wrong? Why?

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19 Answers 19

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You can call yourself a Senior when:

  • You can handle the entire software development life cycle, end to end
  • You lead others, or others look to you for guidance.
  • You can self manage your projects

Software development is a curious creature unlike other fields.

Sometimes, a fresh punk out of college can run circles around veterans who have 20+ years of "experience". Programming is a bizarre world where code is king.

Some achieve the above in 2 years or less, others take 10 years.

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    I would add you have had at least one project fail under your leadership...
    – mattnz
    May 17, 2011 at 3:45
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    I would disagree with the second bullet point. The ability to lead others does not define "senior". It defines the "lead" portion of a title. I know senior developers who I'd rather push off a cliff than follow them over it. I love your other 2 definitions though. +1 Feb 24, 2012 at 15:39
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    @the fresh punk thing though - You can be a gifted coder, a brilliant inventor of algorithms, and still run into trouble simply because it's trouble you haven't run into before. I'm still cockier than I ought to be but even I figured that one out. May 18, 2012 at 6:25
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    I would also add, after 10,000 hours of real programming (not just sitting in front of a computer).
    – user4626
    May 27, 2012 at 16:31
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    some take less than 2, others take 10 -- many won't ever (I met quite a few of them...)
    – kratenko
    Oct 31, 2012 at 16:57
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When I hear “Senior Developer” I think of someone who has mastered programming. I think of a person who can design, code and test a system. They can talk to system architecture or component design. They understand and use design patterns. This person can anticipate the performance bottlenecks, but knows not to pre-optimize. This person will leverage asynchronous programming, queuing, caching, logging, security and persistence when appropriate. When asked they can give a detail explanation of their choice and the pros and cons. In most cases they have mastered object oriented programming and design, this not an absolute other languages such as Javascript, F#, Scheme are powerful and are not object oriented. They are adept in risk management and most important of all they can communicate the before mentioned to their peers.

What is mastery? There is a generally accepted idea, that to master ANY one skill it takes 10,000 hours of repetition for the human body and mind to grasp and internalize a skill. This is written to at length in Malcolm GladWell’s book Outliers. When the original author talked about mastering a field, he was refering to reach the top of a highly competitive field would take 10,000 hours.

Some examples of in Malcolm GladWell’s Outliers are:

Mozart his first concerto at the young age of 21. Which at first seems young, but he has been writing music since he was 11 years old.

The Beatles were initially shunned. They were told they did not have the mustard and should consider a different line of work. They spend 3 years in Germany playing about 1200 times at different venues, each time being 5 to 8 hours in length. They re-emerged as the Beatles we know and love today.

And lastly, Bill Gates at age 20 dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft. To some this might seem foolish, but considered at 20 he had spent nearly half of his young life programming. In 1975, only maybe 50 people in the world had the experience he did. His experience gave him the foresight to see the future in Microsoft.

Peter Norvig also discusses the 10,000 hours rule in his essay “Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years”.

In the book Mastery by George Leonard, great detail is given on how to master a skill. One must practice the skill over and over and over again. The more the repetition, the more you become aware of the differences in each repetition. Only with this insight can you become better.

The software industry’s titles (Junior, Mid-Level and Seniors) are misleading and inconsistent from organization to organization. I’ve worked with companies, who defined a Senior Developer as someone with 5 years or more of experience. There is no mention to the quality of the experience, just that they sat in front of a computer for 5 years. In working with these folks, many of them had not yet grasp object oriented programming -- yet they were considered Senior Developers.

There must be a better more objective way to measure the skill set of a software engineer. John Haugeland posted a computer programmer’s skills matrix. It’s an objective way to measure a programmer’s skill level, which otherwise is left to gut feeling.

When looking at software engineers I see 4 tiers of skills: Luminary, Senior, Mid-Level and Junior.

Luminary (10+ years) is one who has mastered a skill and has set about improving their respective discipline. Some examples include: Ted Neward, Uncle Bob Martin, Donald Knuth, Oren Eini, Peter Norvig, Linus Torvalds. Luminaries change based on your skill-set.

Senior (7 to 10+ years, Level 3) is one who has spent the last 10,000 hours programing in a specific genre. There is a strong understanding of design patterns, They leverage asynchronous programming, queuing, caching, logging, security and persistence when appropriate.

It’s very possible that a Senior will never reach Luminary. Luminaries are often found speaking and writing. They are actively trying to impact their discipline.

Mid-Level (4 to 6 years, Level 2) is one who understands day to day programming. They work independently and create robust solutions. However they have yet to experience creating or maintaining large or complex systems. In general Mid-Level developers are great with component level development.

Junior (1 to 3 years, Level 1) is one who understands the basics of programming. They either have a degree in software engineering or computer science or they are self taught. Their code is continually reviewed. Guidance is given in regards to algorithms, maintainability and structure.

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    The 10,000 hour thing has been debunked. 10,000 hours can be 100 hours for some and 1,000,000 for others.
    – Pithikos
    Apr 4, 2015 at 17:35
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    This answer kinda makes it sound like you have to be the Mozart of programming in order to be considered "Senior." That's crap imo. That might be what it takes to be considered the "God" of programming, but "Senior" has to do with age and rank. If you've been in development for a while and you lead others, you're "senior." It honestly has little to do with your coding acuity.
    – Christine
    Sep 27, 2016 at 23:25
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    More important than "This person will leverage asynchronous programming, queuing, caching, logging, security and persistence when appropriate." is that they should know when NOT to use these design patterns when they are not appropriate. There are many mid-level who are well versed in design/architectural patterns, but who tried to wedge everything into the patterns that they have just most recently read about.
    – Lie Ryan
    Jul 6, 2017 at 11:16
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    Malcolm Gladwell's book is based on the research of Anders K Ericsson. While the 10,000 hours is an empirical requirement is highly competetive fields (which will definitely increase if our lifespan or free time increases), it is by no means a sufficient condition. And these 10,000 hours only apply to deliberate practice (look up the definiton). So there is no rule that "I practice 10,000 hours, so I will be famous".
    – GregT
    Jun 26, 2018 at 14:16
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    And while classical music is very competetive in terms of skill, success in popular music relies less on musical skill (compared to classical) and more on personal charisma. But charisma is most likely can be developed, too. George Martin, who the Beatles owe a large part of their success to, didn't like their music first. But he said "They had tremendous charisma".
    – GregT
    Jun 26, 2018 at 14:17
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"When should you call yourself a senior developer?" - When I started to mentor junior developers.

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    that would have been...in high school. Dec 11, 2010 at 14:27
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    I tend to agree that senior should have a meaning in being able to do something more than just the 'coding'. And for some of us that would have been since High School, but others (with 10+ years of experience) are still just doing the 'loner' thing.
    – Rudi
    Dec 11, 2010 at 14:38
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    @Rudi: Senior implies there is something beneath, rather than "have been doing it a long time". As they say in a popular film, "Always two there are, a master and an apprentice." - granted master's are a bit thin on the ground, so there are usually a few apprentices.
    – Orbling
    Dec 11, 2010 at 14:56
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    @Orbling - senior is a comparison, but it doesn't have to be relative to members of the same firm.
    – JeffO
    Dec 11, 2010 at 19:02
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    I disagree with this entirely. One single aspect in no way determines a skill level in such a complex role. Even "10000 hours in dev" doesn't determine a senior, you could have been banging out crappy procedural code using mysql_ in all that time. Also, at junior (and even mid level) knowledge is very diverse and juniors likely know things other juniors don't and can mentor each other, mid can mentor juniors. So as soon as a mid mentors junior in many things they're suddenly senior? It's just not as black and white as you (and a lot of other answers) put it.
    – James
    Dec 21, 2017 at 14:53
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you're missing the point.

Senior means nothing. Junior means nothing. Titles mean nothing. My title - Associate Business Systems Director. My responsibilities - managing all things IT from in house software development through to infrastrucure, through security, through to customer web sites. My software development experience - self taught. My network experience - self taught. My overall cabapilities in the IT field - worse than yours.

My ability to manage and direct - debateable, but my character and personality got me the job and makes me succesful at it.

Titles mean nothing ability and effort means everything. I'm not the best - and to believe so would be arrogant.

Forget your hang ups about titles and prove your worth!

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    I don't think he is missing the point. Any sensible person knows that it means nothing. Wearing clothes is pointless too is the temperature is right. Isn't adult life a big lie after all?
    – DPM
    Nov 20, 2012 at 14:53
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    Title = payrise :)
    – Gerve
    Jan 27, 2016 at 20:43
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I've noticed the same trend. One of the questions the other day was about a senior developer with 2-3 years' experience moving up to architect.

You can call an acorn a tree, but that don't change what it be.

The only logical conclusion is that "senior" means something else:

  • relative rank, as in "senior to the guy just out of college"
  • poor Spanish spellers, i.e. they meant to put señor
  • southern spelling, as in "senior butt-crack, pull up them pants"

These days, it's just a job title, and may or not say anything about relative industry experience.

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    Lol, at the architect thing. I heard in MS a guy can become a tech lead at 2 years experience and ask someone with 10 years experience to perform better or face consequences :D
    – Geek
    Dec 11, 2010 at 14:16
  • Well it's just a job title but people often judge your knowledge based on that job title and let's not forget your salary.
    – Kev
    Dec 11, 2010 at 14:46
  • @Kev, exactly and that is why title's are important :-(
    – Geek
    Dec 11, 2010 at 14:49
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    you've got to be kidding with the Spanish "señor" thing. Nobody calls anybody "Señor" Developer.
    – silverCORE
    Nov 1, 2012 at 16:16
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I think the best answer was given by Darknight.

I feel the need to point out the following.

2-3 years of programming experience (working + personal together) is just not enough for one to have seen sufficient number of projects and have dealt with a sufficient amount of problems. Just won't work. You need time to let things go through your head, to reflect on your experience and to move mentally to a higher level of thinking. Doesn't happen overnight.

I'd say under 5-7 years of practice (again working + personal together) a miracle is not to expect. One might get a lot of experience with certain languages and frameworks, but not yet jump to a new level of thinking.

The other thing is the overall maturity of an individual. In my opinion it first comes closer to 30 years old. Prior to that our brain may be working at a higher clock rate, but it would be processing junk, because it lacks sufficient data in the memory to see a bigger picture. Our general life experience adds something subtle but real to the way we think and work, so to programming as one other kind of work as well.

My personal acceptance of a senior: somebody at least 27 y.o. with at least 7 years of practice. Prior to that I'd personally be skeptical (but still open-minded, it'll just take more proof to me).

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    It is not safe to equate time in job with experience. A dimwit who spends 10 years doing the same thing with minimal effort will be blown out of the water but a smart achiever who is pushing themselves for 18 months.
    – mattumotu
    Sep 5, 2017 at 21:39
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There was a good blog post by Martin Fowler recently. Things that I took away from it are:

  • It has nothing to do with how long you've been working for somebody. You work for three years and you become a senior developer. What happens after six years? Do you become a senior senior developer?

  • Senior developers don't look down at you or think that they are better than you. That's very important. Once you let your ego get in your way, you are in trouble.

  • Senior developers don't pass the blame. They anticipate problems and they address them in a positive manner.

  • People want to work with senior developers. This is a key for me. I want people to work with me and I want them to enjoy working with me.

  • Senior developers are not the smartest engineers. They don't work on the most complex problems. Their skill set isn't all about programming. Their communication skills play equally important role.

  • Senior developers are good at estimating.

  • Senior developers always care about what they do. They understand that boring tasks must be completed to the same quality as any other, potentially more interesting tasks.

Just to clarify

Skills that I have listed above is what I believe a good senior software engineer should have in addition to fundamental software engineering skills and practices.

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    By that standard a lot of people who can't program and don't like to, are senior developers. Oct 31, 2012 at 20:29
  • At no point I said that they don't like or can't program. I said that their skill set is not just programming, but a range of other things.
    – CodeART
    Oct 31, 2012 at 20:36
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    Sorry, I should have been clearer with my answer. Skills that I have listed is what I believe a good senior software engineer should have in addition to the fundamental software engineering skills. E.g. data structures, operating systems, networks, domain driven design, database systems, acceptance testing etc.
    – CodeART
    Oct 31, 2012 at 20:46
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    I think they have to be excelent in data structures, operating systems, networks, domain driven design, database systems, acceptance testing etc Oct 31, 2012 at 20:48
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    Link to the blog post? Jun 17, 2016 at 15:16
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When you have mentored many, and most thanked you for it years later after disagreeing with you at first, feel free to append 'Senior' to any title that you may command.

Until then, 'lead' is probably a more descriptive term.

To me, the term 'senior' denotes a culmination of practical experience AND wisdom when dealing with people and their arbitrary expectations. Take this scenario into consideration:

16 programmers on a team, each with exactly 1 year more experience than the rest. This means, the 16'th programmer has 16+ years of experience. Eight of the most experienced members are tragically killed when a bus slams into a store. Would the guy with half the experience now be considered a senior developer? I'd hope not, I'd hope the company quickly replaces the voids with people of equal or more caliber than they just lost.

I hate to bring the term 'journeyman' into programming, but some of it applies. The term 'senior' isn't something I'd hand to anyone with less than 15 years experience, because it goes way beyond technical knowledge.

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    +1 Journeyman, and indeed the entire old guild system is totally valid in our engineering led profession.
    – Orbling
    Dec 11, 2010 at 15:00
  • Downvote if I could. I know a handful of developers with 20+ years in the industry that hold the "Senior" title that can't tell their ass from their elbow. I had one try to explain to me that MVC and NTier were the same thing. IMO, senior isn't about any one thing let alone age or years in the field. If a second year developer is capable of leading a team (and does), then they could be considered for the title. In the military, Apprentice, Journeyman, Craftsmen, and Superintendent skill levels are awarded to those that have the necessary skills, and have tested to prove it. I feel the same way Dec 7, 2012 at 2:01
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I find this "Junior/Senior Developer" title wrong and misleading because there's no real measurement unit for this. We're all Software Developers with less or more hands-on experience. Don't try to create a hierarchy for Software Developers, there's no point and it can harm the main focus point: a great-software development team.

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    +1 Agree with your comment I think there is no such silver bullet here, I believe technical as well as people skills are important
    – user21122
    Mar 5, 2012 at 14:26
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    I feel that in many cases title has become more of a definition of pay grade than skill level and experience. Which quite often is determined by negotiation skills. If a mid-level developer interviews for a senior level position and gets the job it does not actually define that they are more skilled or experienced. Simply they were able to negotiate themselves into a higher paid position. Therefore I agree with you titles can be wrong and misleading. May 3, 2014 at 21:47
  • I think your answer is the best here, but in reality companies around the world uses this terminology in all job titles, so we can not avoid it.
    – Oussaki
    May 20, 2018 at 5:24
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When you look back at your previous work and realize what crap it was. And you understand that you've gotten better but there are miles to go, and that learning is forever.

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    I think it's the opposite. The better you are, the longer it takes for code you wrote to become crap. When I started coding, I constantly looked back and realized how bad my code was. Experience teaches you to write code, that won't degrade at light speed.
    – back2dos
    Dec 11, 2010 at 15:39
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    @back2dos It's not about how long it takes to write bad code. It's about understanding your maturation as a developer, and also humility and learning. Being a senior developer is about so much more than code.
    – Bernard Dy
    Dec 11, 2010 at 15:47
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    What you discribe is a personal development that exists in every aspect of human life. Being humble and willing to learn doesn't make you a senior whatever, but rather a good apprentice. However, the primary task of a senior developer is to teach. You can't teach someone if you think all you did 3 months ago is crap. You need a certain calmness that can tame a junior's "everything's crap, let's tear it apart and reinvent the wheel once more"-mentality.
    – back2dos
    Dec 11, 2010 at 16:07
  • @back2dos I think it is possible to be a senior developer and not necessarily be teaching although I agree with what you say and that mentoring/teaching is one of the great benefits of a good senior developer. As far as "everything's crap" part of being a senior developer is being able to understand what really is and what isn't good; some of that is talent, some skill, but also a lot is experience with several environments; living through both quality systems and train wrecks teaches a lot.
    – Bernard Dy
    Dec 11, 2010 at 19:16
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Sometimes I look at other professions and wonder why software programming doesn't standardize itself. There would be no use for this question because there would be an accepted standard to obtaining certain levels. Then I come to the realization, "Who died and left them king?"

We all know that experience, education, certifications, and titles are for everyone else to get a very basic glimpse of a programmers ability. You either know what you're doing or you don't. You can either smell your own kind or you can't.

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It could have something to do with money.

Some companies follow a set salary plan. They can't put you in the middle of the 'Developer'-ladder, because of some given rules. But they can put you in the bottom of the 'Senior Developer'-ladder.

Personally, I find it strange if a person is given a senior title right out of college, but on the other side - who cares? I have been an 'developer' for some ten years now, and even though I get a 'senior' title when I change workplace now, it doesn't mean anything. I will still be a freshman in the new domain - at least for a while...

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When other call you senior developer. There is no one definition. Its changes from company to company. In a well settled company freshers are given less work, and their learning curve is slow. In the startup company a fresher can take many responsibilities and learns many things in less time. I have experienced this first hand. Unfortunately it's only the other experienced people which can calculate the depth of your knowledge, by looking at the quality of your code or work. And I am sure everyone gets their title when the their time is up.
And if you don't you change the company. :-)

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It's a title like many other titles. These "teens" on here might even have a PhD, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. But it will clearly get them a higher salary. The same applies to the Senior Developer or Senior Architect. Or the Senior Project Manager, etc.

Considering that fact, it is better to be called "Our Senior Developer" by your workmates, rather than adding that title to your own card after whatever many years of experience - which I did when I had the opportunity. :-)

Other than that, I'd say 10 years is a minimum (including college or other education).

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  • +1. But I would say it's only a job title! If it's in your job title, then you are one. If you're describing yourself, one can do better than 'I'm a senior developer/programmer/architect/deadbeat/etc...
    – kenny
    Dec 11, 2010 at 21:06
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"WHAAAT.... UNIT TEST !!!! I'm a senior programmer... I don`t need to test my code any-more"

Heard that before.... Thus he lets the "Juniors" fix his bugs and test it.

"We are going to hire an architect... no, not Mr X, we want someone that is much more senior, someone that is no longer coding"

later in the interview :

  • so what programming languages are you familiar with ?

  • ahem... I've used COBOL and FORTRAN but now mostly it`s Ms Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

  • Excellent... when can you start ?

Really senior is just a question of perspective, a Title as would say Steven. However, I wish that I could say that in the end it`s the code you write that matters but unfortunately in many cases the suit and tie makes a bigger impact, especially when you are no longer measured by concrete achievements (code) but how well you convince hierarchies of your essentialness.

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    haven't seen a software developer wear a tie in 5 years, let alone a suit! Mar 9, 2012 at 14:44
  • I have, actually every once in a while in aplace I used to work they would hire a consultant to help with a project I was working on and they thought was not going well enough. sometimes it helped a lot with the code and all. Other times I did not need the help but just told him what to say to my bosses. Since he wore suit and tie "his" arguments were sound and reasonnable and thus was exactly what needed to be done. At that point I just quit and let the suit and tie finish it all up, found myself a job in a company where suit and tie are forbidden... we are all sooo much happier now !!
    – Newtopian
    Mar 9, 2012 at 18:25
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I have seen some job posting recently looking for a CS graduate with less than a year of experience. This seems like insanity to me, even if it is just a title. For one, it suggests a watering down of the title. I’m sure the couple companies I saw with those postings have some other “super-senior” title to denote the real seniors. It’s not a bad hiring strategy I suppose. Title isn’t everything, but all else being equal between two jobs, I would probably take the one with the “Master Chief Developer” title.

The point when the “Master Chief Developer” (or whatever that high position is, “senior” or otherwise) is actually justified though is tricky to pin down. I do not think we can get too objective about quantifying it. As a rough formula, I would say they should be called senior if they are usually the best in the room and the room contains at least 8 professional developers. That would suggest that a senior is in the 87th percentile at a minimum. Although I would say that these devs will likely be the ones with the most experience, I would definitely not say that experience == “senior”, or even close. At the same time, while I am skeptical that the number of true seniors with less than 7 or 8 years must be exceedingly small, it is not impossible for someone with less than that to be a master.

Being 22, I certainly fall into the “unlikely to be a master category”. Although I am around some of those “10(or 30) years of 1 year of experience” types, and am honestly tempted to think I’m better, I try to remember that those people, even if they have put zero effort forward in decades to learning, still have probably gained more knowledge than me on a wide variety of subjects through pure osmosis. There is simply no way I could know as much as them about the full project life cycle. I work with one person who’s project is older than I am! It would be pretty presumptuous of me to really think that I knew more about maintaining a project of that scope than he does.

The other thing to keep in mind is if you start calling yourself a senior at 22, what will you be at 32? It’s a bit of a disservice to your future to assume that you are already at the top. A lot of people look to the 10,000 hour rule to determine when someone is an expert. In Malcom Gladwell’s book where the idea is proposed, it’s pretty clear that experts are not simply the best, but they perform a certain role. Novices are not the worst in any way, but it is a description of method even more than ability. Novices can learn the wacky stuff quickly but often have trouble doing some of the most common stuff as quickly as someone who is an expert. Experts can do the routine things with extreme precision and speed, and know which things to look for that could denote problems, but often have trouble reacting to change, or learning things that are outside their comfort zone. With that in mind, I do not even want to be an expert yet. I would like to soak up as much new information as I can, for as long as I can before settling into a stable domain.

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  • 1) New graduates get hired too 2) Some prefer a new graduate with modern skills that they can 'mold' to their own desires. Mar 9, 2012 at 14:47
  • When you're at 1 year, give that 30 years guy a chance. You might be right, but wait a bit. You might be better at coming up with solutions to specific problems but if he doesn't stink, he might know a thing or two about avoiding larger, more global issues. Or he might just avoid. That's happened. A lot. May 18, 2012 at 6:31
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10 Years ?? You must be Kidding. Ok, how do you define 10 years ? Let us say someone started programming at the age of 15 but became proffesional at 25 ?

The industry doesn't work that way. I think different companies let people call them Senior Dev X or Y anytime between 5-8 years. A lot of seniority in the Organization doesn't come with ability alone, it has a lot to do with the initiative an individual is taking and the kind of responsibilites he is willing to share. Most of the time people with reasonable skill and strong motivation do become senior Pros.

BTW 22 years is not teen ;-)

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    10 years of enployment of course.
    – Rook
    Dec 11, 2010 at 14:43
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    I was doing GWBasic graphing of quadratic equation solving on a casio PB-700 when I was 14, with zoom-in/zoom-out features (to better see intersection with axis, which had autofraction for axis unit numbering at zoom). 28 years later, I program in python on my HTC android, and have been a "professional developer" for 12+ years. Does that make me Señor? Think not. Still a hacker at heart (play with SLA4 for a bit on your android phone to see how far computer still has to go). We're all teens in this business. Jan 20, 2011 at 22:05
  • @Chris: What a good answer mate. Happy Hacking.
    – Geek
    Jan 21, 2011 at 9:51
  • -1 The first paragraph is a rant about the previous post (should be a comment on that post) and certainly not a 'good answer' to the question. I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that 10 years experience only makes sense if you have a lot of experience (experience being the one thing you can't teach when compared to 'knowledge' which you can). Being in my 40's has brought me a lot of 'senior' knowledge that I didn't get after 5-8 years in my 20's. Mar 9, 2012 at 14:42
  • @Michael : +1. Good points about "EXPERIENCE"
    – Geek
    Mar 22, 2012 at 6:56
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The first time you get a job based on at least one interview session that is not "classic technical interview" in nature (i.e., talk about architecture, concepts, design, view of the company, experience, etc.)

My (limited) experience is that junior developers usually get hired based purely on performance in the standard battery of interview questions, and senior ones based on a variety of other interactions.

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Age is just a number; a young kid is getting smarter and _insert number years-experienced programmer is just getting old... Nowadays, a kiddo can write cleaner, better, faster codes in a smart way. An old pal can just get jealous.

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  • 2
    I understand what you're getting at, but if age is just a number, why are you referring to people as "kiddo" and "old pal"? Seems a bit ageist.
    – StuperUser
    Oct 31, 2012 at 17:21
  • 5
    Age is just an unsigned integer. Oct 31, 2012 at 20:30

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