To become a Senior Developer, you cannot just sit still and expect the "laurels" to come to you. Especially in the programming world where technology continues to grow so quickly, there are tremendous opportunities to lead the game for yourself.

If you want to be appreciated for the good work, you must be willing to work hard and do your best. For senior roles, you have various desire such as:

Be respected by coworkers

Feel valued at work

Advanced technical skills

Develop more positive relationships

To achieve the above goals, let's get started on the skill set to be an aspiring Senior Developer:

1. Technical skills

It’s important to develop your technical skills during your dev’s career. Like all managers, Senior Developer has amazing tech skills to give directions and correct their team’s actions when necessary. Great programmers also spend time to learn the reasons behind the technology.

They ask WHY:

- Why does this problem exist?

- Why does this framework exist?

- What is the software library used for?

In order to understand the pros and cons when trying to solve a real problem for the company, Senior Developer keep asking themselves questions like "What can be improved?” or something like “What makes a better product?".

As a developer, you should have a strong sense of all of the tools and ideas that can benefit the development lifecycle and choose the tools that will have a massive practical advantage on a project.

2. Team skills

This is where emotional intelligence comes in. Senior Developer is a position to collaborate and encourage team members. They don’t have big egos and know they have to prove themselves by acting like a good leader. They write simple codes instead of demonstrating their codes in ways that cannot be read by other team members. They are ready to help and ask questions when they don't know anything.

Besides, Senior Developer is the type of person who can get along with any group in the company. They focus on making it easier for managers, directors, scrum masters, and CTOs to work with them.

If you are wondering how to improve your team skills, social psychology is an important tool, and “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is a famous book to rn you make the people around you better? If you have 5 people in your group, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 has to be greater than 5 because you make the people around you better.  

3. Client/ User skills

Can you talk to clients or users and interpret what their needs are? When they share the experience with you, do you understand what the problem is? A Senior Developer is possibly a good listener who can be alone with the client and then gives advice on the effective steps to go on.

Even though programers are not appreciators, they are very good at forming relationships by benefiting from interaction with their clients or users. They understand that the goal is creating a win-win solution and do not force their opinion on customers.

Gaining client/ user skills, you need to be able to explain complex programming concepts to someone who is not technically proficient. Start developing this skill by watching famous developers break down complex topics, to observe some similarities between you and them.

4. Growth skills

Senior developers are always learning something new every day. That doesn't mean they spend 14 hours per day sitting in front of their computers reading articles. They are more effective than that. They always want to talk to other developers, ask questions or explore new topics. They don't just focus on one skill set. You may be the world's best at creating something, but if you don't know the full scope or have a general understanding of the problem you're solving, you're no longer the best.

They have a growth mindset (believe that intelligence is malleable) and they believe in deliberate practice (just click on the link. It's gold). They understand that learning everything is impossible and they choose to spend time on the things they enjoy and the most important things.

They don't just say "Oh, I hate this library!" Most of the time, people who say things like this hate something because they don't fully understand it. For example, don't just say “I hate jQuery. Only bad developers still use jQuery ”and it sounds bloated. "JQuery is instrumental in the evolution of the web and the popularity of javascript," said senior developers. They have changeable attitudes because they like to learn from others and they try new concepts before deciding that they "hate" something.

5. Sales/ Interview Skills

As technology is changing rapidly and the amount of available information is almost overwhelming, the career path of programmers is always open with great opportunities. Senior Developers can take on top-level roles themselves because they can communicate and sell themselves to those decision-makers.

With sales skills, you are also confident enough to take on those roles and be able to perform under pressure. If you never ask, the answer is always no, so be humble and ask for a promotion, or roles that challenge you because you are the right person for the job.

While for some people, selling and negotiating can be boring, it's a valuable skill to have. Ramit Sethi’s article can help you learn how to demonstrate your abilities and show your employer or business that you are the one to solve their problem. Although it is about negotiating wages, some principles can be applied to your career development.

6. Community skills

Senior Developer contributes to the developer community. Whether it's by conducting tech talks, speaking at meetings, or even writing articles. They are the type of people who share information with the tech industry instead of staying in their workspace.

they go out and communicate with people in other communities, which allows them to broaden their horizons. It's like traveling: The more you meet and chat with cultures, the more you understand the similarities and differences between people, and the more you begin to appreciate it.

Conclusion

If you've learned to code and are looking for the next step in your career, you need to think differently. How can you stand out? How can you grow? How can you help people solve real-world problems and provide value? You become a Senior Developer by not doing things easy. You do things that motivate and challenge your mind just like the first time you wrote the first piece of code.

Real passion comes after you have mastered a skill and enjoy what you are doing. By appreciating every day learning about computer science and software development, you will never become a Senior Developer and have the strength to become better in the long run.   

Each step will be small, but over a period of a lifetime, a small step turns into miles. Never stop reading and never stop learning, but also using your valuable time to develop a passion for the work you do.

Source: Medium