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X (Maybe Not So Simple) Steps to Become [Insert Title] Software Developer
So you want to become a senior/staff/mid-level developer eh? Well, hopefully not all of them at the same time, but wherever you are in your career, you’re likely wondering what it will take to get to the next step. Let many authors tell it and you’ll believe that some finite number of steps or projects will land you the next title. It’s rarely that simple or consistent across companies.
Years ago when I first began writing code, I had a goal of becoming a senior developer. I knew I had a long road to go and the path was unclear at best. What made a senior developer? Debugging skills? Project management? Git mastery? Writing excellent code? Some combination?
The truth is that the expectations for a a senior developer can vary wildly from one company to another. I have a friend at a well known company on a team where anyone with more than one year of experience is officially titled a senior developer, while a senior software engineer at a startup may function more like a principal architect in the absence of an engineering hierarchy. Some companies have strict YOE requirements, some don’t 🤷♀.
The only way to define a clear path to the next level of your engineering career is to identify the skills that are needed at that level at your current company, both spoken and…
