The speed of promotion in software engineering roles is astounding. That isn’t an issue in itself, but sometimes the “wrong” people are being promoted to senior roles. Wrong in this context are those that are fast at completing simplistic programming tasks, rather than those who focus on collaboration and helping the team. Any senior should place the team at the heart of their focus.
Who cares about people?
Over time I’ve seen “senior” developers behave in the same way one might expect a junior. Difficult to read code, comments describing what rather than why, and code that shows the author thinks SOLID is something to do with geometry.
The Peter Principle benefits a certain type of poor coder. These “seniors” strongly exhibit these 7 tell-tale signs of their junior skills.
Arrogance Clouding Judgement
It’s fairly normal for software engineers to be judgmental. As a developer moves through the competency hierarchy, their behavior should change and mature.
Specifically, when software engineers earn the senior badge, they should listen more than speak. Have an open mind about finding solutions, rather than pressing for their own idea. It doesn’t matter where the solution comes from, what matters is the problem is solved.
To think you’re always right? A junior trait.