Junior vs Senior Developers

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Chris Missal, December 28, 2008

Recently, Chris Brandsma wrote about "Thinking only of the Junior Developer". I agree with pretty much everything he had to say, but Davy Brion commented on the same blog about this post. Here is Davy Brion's take on Junior Vs Senior Developers

I commented on Davy's post about this and since this involves me (I've only been n the software industry since 2006) I thought it was worthwhile sharing here:

For the most part Davy, I agree with what you're saying AND I agree with what Chris is saying. It gets difficult since what matters most is talent; not experience or education. If I were hiring developers for a project, my job posting would include what I want them to know; not how long they've been doing "this" and what their degree is in "that". If they can write good software and they understand the concepts that lead to good software, they'll do a good job and they're the fit for me. Just because somebody has "stuck around" for 10, 15 or 20 years doesn't mean they have seniority over anybody else. It just means they've stuck to their profession for 10, 15 or 20 years. A TRUE senior developer (in my still growing book, as I don't consider myself to be one...) is one who is willing to learn, research, mentor, train and discover alternative ways to develop and maintain software.

I feel that the openness to admit there is possibly another way to do it, in addition to being in a field where we're continuously changing what works best, is a virtue that is often overlooked. This takes neither a Junior nor a Senior developer to recognize this. This leads to good software.

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