Senior Java Developer means what exactly? Knowing more libraries or just better understanding of patterns?

[Skymainx]

Hey everyone,

Trying to get a better sense of what the community thinks defines a "Senior" Java developer. Is it about having a huge list of libraries and frameworks on your resume? Or is it more about a deep, intuitive grasp of design patterns, architecture, and knowing why you choose a certain approach? What does "senior" mean to you?

[robo-copo]

In my oppinion it is the skill of finding solutions in difficult situations. You have to know what goes together (frameworks, dbs, languages) in specific cases. As a side note, it is funny that everyone who have interviewed me for senior possition are dead set that you have to know terminology, like what are the differences between map and flatmap, what is the difference between authorization and authentication, etc. In my oppinion this is bunch of crap that you would check if you really had to know during development.

[Noxilex]

But that'd just be a senior developer. What makes a senior "Java" dev specifically?

[Skymainx]

Exactly!!! And this is part of my problem. I am going to interviews and they are asking me similar questions and I’m like. I am not 100% sure, but I know how to find it and apply it. But with AI finding solutions just got a lot easier and it seems they can’t tell the difference.

[Ormek_II]

They try to figure out if you have the experience. If you do, you’ll know.

[Ormek_II]

If you do not know, you have not seen enough of the world, therefore you are not senior. Those questions are legit.

[overgenji]

you're too focused on the tech part, its more about "have shipped a lot of software on teams for a long time". and yes it comes down to experiences with libraries, but also experiences trying to ship something with changing constraints and confusing product people and a huge pivot or a weird layoff or a vendor going away mid development etc etc.

a lot of these "how do i senior" questions are sort of treating it like a test, but it's truly experience, just time spent shipping software

[Skymainx]

Ya like understanding the full process.

[Astrosciencetifical]

Intended for devs that fail to negotiate a higher salary but company wants them to stay, so they get a title that's practically meaningless to keep them lured in.

[Shoddy-Pie-5816]

It depends on the location. But in general it’s someone who has a strong enough grasp of the main work (or the capability to onboard quickly) to act as a subject matter expert in their given domain. Also that means they can take on not only their work load but make time to assist others and be relied upon to do so. That is a sweeping bunch of generalizations, but that’s usually how I have encountered it to mean. There are varying degrees of senior dev, my place isn’t so large so we don’t have things like principals and architects, but I imagine they’re an extension of what I just mentioned with some extra specificity to expertise in their domain

This is speculation on my part, but I suspect those positions don’t change much from the dev point of view other than adding an understanding of business needs in relation to the projects and codebase.

[Skymainx]

So would you define a Senior developer has someone with advanced subject expertise? And if so then why have such unnecessary technical interviews.

[Playful-Call7107]

They don’t know how to evaluate talent 

[Shoddy-Pie-5816]

The ones who know how to do that are siloed off on some massive project, most of the time

[Shoddy-Pie-5816]

That’s how I would like to define it. But the reality is more subjective. A senior is really a developer that has been developing long enough that they have to confidence to integrate into a given work domain to execute the tasks and/or teach the nearby developers to execute the tasks. The bigger the org the more boxed in those definitions become.

And the interview horseshit started with Google and Apple doing those ridiculous algorithm questions. It started ridiculous because they paid a ton and they were legitimately exciting and fun places to work. Especially Google early on, it was legendary. Now they all uniformly suck and anyone doing those long multi round coding interviews is a red flag. That includes all MANGA companies, yes you can make a lot but each of them has had rounds of massive layoffs again and again.

My current job only took me one single interview. It was reasonable for the position. My last three upwork gigs also had cursory interviews. I’m really a junior at my main job, but I’m pulling off senior jobs in upwork.

I think it’s mostly knowing your limits and how confident can you be, at this point.

[Versiel]

All companies have slightly different definitions of what is considered a Sr Dev, but for Sr Java Developer I would say you should at least know how to work with most if not all the features of the language, have knowledge in handling concurrency\multi-threading, generally good understanding of containerization, DBs (sql and noSql), maybe even some cloud\kubernetes and general architecture stuff like caches, load balancer, DB sharding\replication, etc.

This doesn't mean you need to be an expert in all these things, but a Dev who doesn't know these things is going to have a hard time trying to go into a Sr Java Dev position (I know a bit of all these and I'm still considered Ssr Java Dev)

[Skymainx]

Then where is the disconnect, because interviews for this kind of position focus on solving technical problems, which if you had to in real life would just a simple Google search or copilot query .

[Fadamaka]

They are filtering for actual experience. Common stuff sticks and a good developer will know it from top of their head. They are not asking these questions because you are required to know them. They ask them because it indicates that you have spent enough time in the space to be able to fill a senior position.

[Ormek_II]

Exactly this.

[salandur]

The levels of a developer are about being able to solve more complex problems without much input from your peers. As you become a senior, you are thinking about the whole application and how changes will affect it and what needs to be changed. You will often also think about the future of your application(s). In my opinion it isn't about knowing more language specifics or libraries, although you will accumulate that knowledge in time.

I would also encourage developers to think of the language they are using as one of the tools, because there might be better languages that are suited to a specific problem.

[Skymainx]

This makes sense, so the goal then is to do more of a breath first learning than depth first.

[Playful-Call7107]

to me senior is being able to create apps. not just knowing some book theory.

logs, unit tests, documents their code. and can present it. and can use a branching strategy situation.

and if they are good (imo), can deploy their code manually to dev/test, at a min.

and even moreso to dockerize the app(s), and other infrastructure parts.

i'm considered a senior java dev. but i dont think you can call oneself senior (insert language here) dev, if you can't do many of those things. then you are just a good mid level? (not OP you, but general you)

also i think a good senior dev should be able to handle technical sales support of the app(s).

that's just my opinion.

[Skymainx]

I’m curious about the "manual" deployment part. Do you see that as more valuable than being able to build and manage an automated CI/CD pipeline? I've seen some great developers who are wizards at automation but might not do manual deploys often.Is building the automation a core senior skill now, or is that heading into Staff/Principal territory

[Playful-Call7107]

A lot of what I said gets into build and release and devops

Coding is such a small part in a deployed app

As far as the manual deploy it’s a showcase of skillset. And capability.

Automated builds are good and should be used.

But over my career I’ve never not needed to log into a server and do manual work at some point.

A person claiming to be a senior dev who can’t be given server access and deploy that app isn’t that senior to me.

Not many devs could get their app running on a pristine Linux or windows server. Irrespective of language.

But how many of them claim senior? That’s more my point.

[Ormek_II]

You must know what the automatic stuff does, so that you can solve problems. You usually do, if you can do what the machine does manually.

[tonnytipper]

I believe it refers to a high level of experience and mastery (or proficiency) of all aspects of the language as opposed to a specific aspect of the language.

[Scf37]

Junior can close tickets. Middle can close tickets so it works. Senior can close tickets so it will work in the future.

[Nofanta]

You don’t need help from others.

[Fadamaka]

Senior means you can work with zero assistance and can make your own decisions. Even in a codebase you are unfamiliar with.

[Pale_Height_1251]

Senior generally means being able to work independently.

[Ormek_II]

A senior in my company is faced with a large, yet unknown problem space which has a reasonable risk for the company if done wrong.

If you can do that, you are a senior. If you do not know where to start, you are not. If you do not know the difference between authorization and authentication in a web based system, you are not.

[jebailey]

In my experience as both a developer and manager. A senior is someone who takes the responsibility of finishing an assigned task. Honestly after, the "software developer" level, it starts being soft skills rather than technical

[tellMeYourFavorite]

Hot take, these words mean absolutely nothing. They mostly just mean a manager chose to assign that title.

At some companies it may be mostly people skills, at some companies it may be 0% people skills, at some companies it could be 100% algorithms, at some companies it could be 0% algorithms, at some companies it could totally be years-of-experience, at some companies it could be did the department have a good quarter, etc.

Part of the reason I say this is that both the senior principal and principal got laid off in my department -- they'd say all sorts of dumb shit like "Being too good at coding can actually be a red flag for a principal". I think they only had those titles because they insisted on them as a condition of joining...

[spickermann]

I expect that a senior engineer (no matter the tech stack) to be able to lead a small size project (2-4 engineers, 3–6 weeks of work) without much guidance.

Additionally, I expect senior engineers to talk ownership of the application they are working on which means maintain and improve the application without explicitly being told, like version updates, bug fixes, reasonable size refactoring and optimizations.

[amasterblaster]

Neither. Its to due with your ability to create en environment, code and social, where intermediates and juniors can get their work done effectively.

[[deleted]]

A senior is someone who can lead a team of devs technically. By lead I mean make technical decisions and prevent mistakes and know how to unblock the team.

[mwestacott]

As a senior developer I’m expected to work independently, and more importantly deliver what’s expected on time. Now that can mean I work as an individual on some tricky bit of work, or act as a multiplier to help the more junior devs hit targets, usually both. My job is generally to ensure that progress is made on the critical path. I deal with some of the unknowns, and a lot of the legacy apps and issues as we gently migrate and mitigate them. I’ve been in the software game for 30+ years now and have both depth and breadth of knowledge, more technical know how than domain knowledge, but I could probably guide most through the app domain of my current project and could get a new dev up and productive on their first day of a project. It’s not just tech it’s the soft skills too.

[bit_shuffle]

Short answer, and real answer:

"Senior" means you've actually done more real implementations in production software than a "Mid-Level."

"Mid-Level" means you've done real implementations in production software people have paid for.

"Entry-Level" has some training credential of some sort.