> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://hanfak.gitbook.io/workspace/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://hanfak.gitbook.io/workspace/career/senior.md). # Senior Dev capabilities * Understand the in and outs of the language (not just frameworks); * Understand everything about the framework they use and this includes: * Development and release process; * Known bugs; * They should have, at least once, made a PR with a bug fix to that repo; * Awareness and basic understanding of competitors; * Understand everything about the build & release process of their application; * Understand how a backend REST api works; * Depending on the application, they should be able to design a CI/CD pipeline * Solid understanding of OOP principles; * Solid understanding of Functional principles; * Solid understanding of unit and integration testing (coverage >= 80%); * Databases understanding, at least understand how an ORM works and know the most common DB concerns * Doing code review and writing code every day. ## Skills ### The Ability to Deliver Bug-Free Code Quickly and Consistently * Deliver\ – Things actually get finished, and to spec – often exceeding the spec to cover scenarios the spec writer hadn’t considered. * Bug-Free\ – QA and customers have a very tough time finding bugs in their code. When they do, it’s usually minor and a painless and/or quick fix. * Quickly * This is perception based, but generally technical and non-technical staff agreed it was “Quickly done”. * Consistently * Management considered the pace of delivery predictable, which is not the same as “the same”. Management could develop a good sense of when to expect work depending on the phase of the project, volume of meetings, quality of specs, etc. ### The Inability to Be Bullshitted * “Bullshit” comes in many flavors on a software development project: * Laughably incomplete, inconsistent, and/or non-existent specifications * Hilariously unrealistic deadlines * Tragically incompetent co-workers ### The Ability to Explain “Why” * A junior engineer cannot explain why they are doing what they are doing in the way they are doing it. * A mid-level engineer has justification for some of their actions/approaches but not all. * A senior engineer knows exactly why they are doing everything they do, and can explain the rationale of their choices in exhaustive detail * makes them good coaches and mentors to other members of the team. ### Complete Technology Agnosticism * understand the technology of today is not the technology of tomorrow, and that “hot” technology never stays hot * sophisticated method of evaluating new and old technologies that examines the technology from a wide array of angles * What problems does the technology solve better than other solutions? * Where did the technology come from? * What is the switch cost to, and away from, the technology assuming it is adopted? * How ready is the organization to adopt this technology? * What is the learning curve for this technology? * How readily can we find staff who know this technology? * Is there commercial support for this technology? * What is the anticipated life-span of this technology? * lead them to reject “hot” technologies in favor of ones that are tried-and-true. * to push for unproven technologies because of how well they solve a particular problem * there is a methodology of this evaluation, not simply a desire to learn or not learn something new. ### A Process to Estimate Work * As long as time and money are constraints for a project, work estimates will be required during the planning progress * extremely difficult * accuracy is not the goal of the estimate, so much as predictable margins of error. * if you are within 30% of your estimate you are doing a good job estimating. * senior engineer views estimates as a difficult challenge to be surmounted, and as a result will normally ask for dedicated time simply to come up with the estimates. * will not give an off-the-cuff estimate even if their job is on the line, as they understand the dire consequences of a “guesstimate” ## Key actions * write documentation that is useful ## Types * The All ‘Rounder * The Code Whisperer * The Earth Mover * The Domain Expert ## What comes next? * Staff * Engineering maanger ## Links * * * * * * *