Article made by Vadim Kravcenko - Falsehoods Junior Developers believe about becoming Senior
It is very easy to fall prey to the fantasy that climbing ranks will somehow bestow upon us a magical cloack of knowledge, authority and ease.
Seeing a good senior in action is aspiring as a junior, just watch how they navigate the terminals. However advancing your career is really less about learning the terminal and more about embracing a new set of complex, nuanced responsibilities.
Having all the answers
❌ Expectation: I will be able to solve all the bugs and know what’s wrong in a matter of minutes. ✅ Reality: The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know. Let’s figure this out together.
Becoming a senior also means accepting that you’ll never know all the answers, the expertise should be measured by your ability to work with uncertainty, ask the right questions to get to where you need to be in terms of understanding, knowing how to find a solution once you have that understanding.
The job is to solve problems, not to know-it-all
Working with the latest tech
❌ Expectation: As a senior, I’ll get to play with the latest tech and build amazing projects! ✅ Reality: This legacy code isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I. Let’s fix some bug that happens once every full moon.
This is something I didn’t know that people believed in - Junior/Senior doesn’t really have to do anything with the novelty of tech, you work with what you’ve got !
No more boring tasks
❌ Expectation: Being senior means I can avoid all the boring tasks. ✅ Reality: Endless meetings, documentation, and code reviews… Oh, and did I mention debugging legacy systems on Friday at 6 PM?
Again not something I thought people believed in - In my experience seniority also means spending coutless hours doing meetings, bureaucracy, documentation, code reviews etc..
Embrace the full spectrum of the role - Including the boring parts - this can become the most fulfilling part of your work.
Making big changes
❌ Expectation: Has a million ideas on how to change this company 180 degrees! Let’s improve everything! ✅ Reality: Knows that nothing will change without management approval and the necessary budget.
Its a common sentiment among junior devs to look at the systems, processe and tech around them and see endless opportunities for improvement (myself totally included in that).
Learn to communicate the value of your ideas in terms that resonate with relevant stakehoders, figure out how the budget is allocated and take part in resource planning. Bringin change requires time.
Time to relax
❌ Expectation: I’ll make sure to have a perfect work-life balance once I’m senior. ✅ Reality: Balancing deadlines, mentoring, and personal life is like juggling knives. Occasionally, one does get dropped.
Unfortunately the workload doesn’t decrease it usually evolves. On top of what an usual programmer would do you have to add mentoring, strategic planning etc.. While junior won’t really care if their task is blocking ten other people, a senior should!
Working on strategies to support a sustainable balance between work and life is a must when evolving in this field.
Deciding what to do
❌ Expectation: Once I become a senior, I will lead big projects, have a big impact, and tell others what to do! ✅ Reality: I miss the times when people told me what to do.
While their is still a lots of hands-on tasks you’ll have to do, the more senior you become the less people will tell you what to do, the more it is expected from you to know what needs to be done. With great power comes great responsibility - and anxiety. Leading big projects means facing the pressure of making the right decisions and the fear of failure.
Becoming irreplaceable
❌ Expectation: Once I become a senior, I will lead big projects, have a big impact, and tell others what to do! ✅ Reality: I miss the times when people told me what to do.
Its comforting to think that seniority equates to job security. This is more applicable in countries outside of France as we’re ‘safer’ from unexpected lay-offs. That being said nobody is irreplaceable and even as a senior we should keep learning and look outside of the company. Being the only one in the company who knows some obscure framework that was used ten years ago does not give you a competitive edge during hiring.