When I was starting my career, I knew that I wanted to go into software development. I enjoy solving problems and finding solutions. I know that my talents can be of use to a company.
Bringing with me my credentials, tools and programming language from college, I embark in a journey to find a company looking for java skillset. I ended up in a company using PHP and doing web development. I was a fresh graduate; I was enthusiastic; learning a language is not a problem.
What I like about my first company, it feels like a startup. At that time, I didn’t know what a startup is. Our IT department let us use whatever language/framework we see fit for the job. We are a small team with our own projects. Maximum of 3 in a team. It can be one or two developers and a business analyst who gathers the requirements. We learn from our own mistakes. The one who is more senior guides me when I’m caught in a difficult problem I can’t solve. I remember it as a time where my senior’s words are holy grail and everything he say’s is right.
I never knew before about career path. It wasn’t something the company develops and discusses with employees. My manager is more concerned about our deliverables than our growth. All I understand is that I have performance review yearly so that we can have salary increase. I have to learn on the fly. I have to solve problems on my own. It didn’t feel an uphill battle, the team is supportive and feels like a family.
When I moved to my next company, I applied for senior role. I believe I was qualified for this role. I believe that I can be an asset to the team. When I joined the team, I was like the junior again. I was taught on how to use the system; I studied the framework; I studied the codes; I learned about agile methodology and how to work in a bigger team. We now have a QA that catches bugs and gives us scenarios that I wasn’t able to think of. We have discussions where we talk about solutions as a team. We move as one. There was a time I ask myself, what differentiates a senior from my other colleagues that are mid-level? As a senior, what contribution can I add to my team?
I realized that a senior level engineer can vary depending on what team that you’ll be embedded on. The quality of the standards of an engineering team affects the perception of what a senior role is. The technical skills + attitude + leadership skills are what is important. It is also important that you have your values intact. What makes a clean code? What makes a great coding structure? How can you optimize the code but not sacrifice readability? How can I communicate and convert this technical jargon to what business can understand?
Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand. — Martin Fowler
There are three things that I think a senior developer has great influence over based on my experience:
- You are the driver of how the code base will be maintained moving forward. How strict are you to maintain the team’s unit tests? How do enforce code quality keeping it DRY (Don’ repeat yourself)? How do implement OOP (object oriented programming) design patterns?
- You are a role model to developers especially junior and mid level engineers. You are respected with your experience that you bring to the table. You help mold the young ones on how their mindset is when it comes to programming and in life. Do you spoon feed or teach them how to fish? Do you guide or dictate? These are small things that influence their daily lives.
- You bring solutions or innovations that can help the team. As a senior engineer, you’ve experienced a lot of failures and success. And in these experiences, I believe that there are things that you want to change deep inside. Either you find ways to make it happen or have ideas on how you can change it given the chance. This is where innovation comes in. You just don’t code. You want to make your environment you work on and development practice be better.
As I go higher the corporate ladder and gain more experience, I realized that my journey is for me. Everything I learn along the way, everyone that I met that helped me grow in my career — formally or informally are the ones that mold me to how I think today.
To the tech leaders and senior engineers, you are the informal teachers of the young, enthusiastic engineers. Let’s show the young ones what is possible. Let’s help them grow in their practice and also in their mindset. It can be a scary place and bugs can go to live but if we are there and place a safety net, then we can help them have more confidence on their skills and outlook.
Every morning brings new potential, but if you dwell on the misfortunes of the day before, you tend to overlook tremendous opportunities. — Harvey Mackay
