Falsehoods Jr Devs Believe Aboutr Sr Devs 

I thought I was a junior developer until I was told I have the most responsibilities among the developers in our company and is considered one of the top developers. Now I just have impostor syndrome.

Ever since I joined my current company as SE3 I’ve always dreamt about Principal SE position because every PSE in our company seemed to be so good and had so many fun things to do. Since few weeks ago, I’m one of them. And you know what? Having a time to sleep felt better lol.

Flip did the best jobs with zoom in

The most important thing about being "senior" is learning what you do know, and more importantly what you DONT know and where to find the answer.

"Endless meetings" I had a strategy meeting for an upcoming meeting, followed by a client meeting, followed by a review of the previous meeting. We scheduled another meeting in the last meeting so we could more widely discuss the topics. My calendar has an average of 3 hours of meetings a day, and of the people I've talked to, that's actually less meetings than many.

Flip trolling

"Many junior developers dream of working exclusively with the latest frameworks and tools." So they finally managed to mix LSD into tap water.

I’ve been coding for about 35 years (started at age 7, zx spectrum), and I still don’t consider myself a senior. I don’t know if I want to be, it means I have to write proper code, and the only reason I code is because it allows me to be creative, create anything I want. Made quite a bit of money doing it too, but I want it to remain new and exciting, not something where I follow rules and guidelines.

I recently discovered this channel and absolutely loving it. Being a buddying Techie, learning a lot with these discussions.

Your highlighting is very satisfying. ADHD approved!

I'm at the beginning of the video, but I've noticed that the "Senior Developer: 'I don't know what I'm doing'" meme is normally due to companies promoting developers based on time in the job instead of, for lack of a better word, merit. In my own company, our developer levels document says that 3-5 years of experience is one of the criteria for the senior level. It leads to people simply expecting to be promoted after a certain amount of time without focusing on growing as a developer. And while I'm on the subject... I really don't like that a lot of companies also say that a senior developer can implement complex code while entirely leaving out the ability to simplify complex code in the first place. It leads to people developing terrible spaghetti and then getting promoted because of it. It's analogous to how a good professor can communicate complex topics in simple terms. We're not trying to promote the development of JDSL here guys.

Senior Developer Rizz is indeed real.

This article is voicing all my insecurities as a new senior thats not allowed.

For me, when I run into someone who THINKS they know everything, I seriously doubt them.

Heck, I just realized (thanks to the author mentioning Linux skill issues) that I had an XY-problem. I was so concerned about how to run `go` with sudo, that I didn't even think to just build it and then run the executable with sudo.

Best part about this whole thing is the anguish that the higlightist must have felt during every -1 highlight after bringing it up.

Important topic. I'm a 55yr-old junior dev. And I seriously respect senior devs even if they happen to be 25yrs. *It's all about putting our minds to work, irrespective of age. AI is catching up to coding incredibly fast... so we need to work with that or fall behind*

That's some wisdom on 21:00. It the hard truth that you can't sell promises or ideas written as a document. Only MVP and real stuff that works.

I think, im probably putting in half the time as I was as a Jr. But I came from actuarial, the hours were like 60-78 hours per week on work and study... on the last 2 months leading up to an exam. I think I probably spend 8-12 hours "learning" outside of 40 hours per week. I try to put 2-3 hours into refinement of my process, per week. I also try to study some maths when I'm not sad. Do some low level programming. I've been recently building myself tools to help build intuition for mathematical objects. Idk I think investing ~ 5 hours per week in learning something new, getting better... after 16 weeks, that 5 months is less than ur efficiency gain. And u just keep doing that

I totally thought my senior devs didn't make as much mistakes as I did, until the new dev lead starting doing code reviews and they got just as many comments as I was (some times more :D)

I’d say I’m a senior in terms of full-stack web dev stuff, I’m not senior when it comes to game development or things like kernel development… I’m probably very, very junior in those things. Especially kernel development stuff.

The author is not a good senior dev.

15:54 - One thing I hate: “But you’re free, right? It’s just a quick chat.” Sometimes it’s totally legit, especially if it’s ad hoc or whatever, but if it’s totally unrelated to what you’re working on and you’re 95% certain it could be async (email, Slack, etc) and they just don’t want to take the time to write it out, then it’s a bit annoying for sure. The main reason is: Focus. Gotta have that uninterrupted focus time to allow you to mentally ramp up on what you’re working on.

I don't assume everyone knows more than me but I do assume that good ideas can come from anywhere. Back when I used to assume that people knew more than me it would always cause suffering when that turned out to not be the case.

Panel 5 of the goose comic is "Breaking news: A commercial passenger plane makes an emergency landing in the Hudson River."

When I first watched a couple of your videos I was unsure, but watching more you seem based. Respect.

A senior doesn't know everything, but they know how to know anything they need. They also work outside the context of the code, they know to make decisions on what provides best cost-benefit first, "bad" code solutions may be perfect for the needs and capacity of the business

The truth is no one knows what they are doing. In life, in software, etc. When you have to face a challenge you've never seen or don't know where to start, how you respond is what makes you an adult or a "senior" developer. I may not know how to do something, but I am confident that I have the skills and experience to figure it out. Im a senior SE btw

05:45 easy to do at netflix lol

3:45 I appreciate the Sledgehammer reference

Spacemacs Master Race reporting in

about the endless meetings, I think it's generally less true nowadays. As Michael mentionned, ensuring meetings are useful and protecting the team's time is a priority. However if you end up as a senior dev and turns into a manager (team lead and above)... well it's true there's going to be meetings and it should be your priority to shield your team from them as possible. In my team, we actually added 2 short weekly "team banter" meetings for social purpose because we actually ended up not having enough chances to talk to each other for non-work related stuff. Otherwise beside a weekly sync, most meetings people in my team do are usually directly with other expertise counterparts so they can solve/help or communicate issues. Also with remote meetings, it also get easier for optional people to just carry on working and get poked to join the call if it's relevant for them to intervene. it's so much better than wasting your time being physically present in a long meeting not relevant to you just in case needs someone to answer a very specific tech question (like before the pandemic).

Junior: fight to make technology do what you want Mid: fight to do technology the best way possible Senior: fight to solve business problems and it just happens that you're using tech to do so

Been working as a web developer for 2.5 years. I've got 10 years of experience.

I make a comment for flip to know that him rebelling increases the likelyhood of me interacting with the video.

As someone that’s been in the infosec world for a few decades, you are absolutely going to get hacked at some point in time. One of the goals is to make it take harder to get in to, faster to recover and limiting the blast radius so when it happens the damage is limited.

damn, netflix is 25 years old

There is still code running in production that I wrote as a one off to plug a hole temporarily with the belief that it would be replaced in 6-12 months... it has been years and that piece of trash i threw together in a day is still chugging away... and still used and still not replaced... How it has not broken yet is another mystery to me... There is 0 documentation, the code is not well formatted... there is no process for it at all... its just there...

Maybe the comment about not highlighting the whole line @9:40 meant how you are doing it. I'd get not wanting to select "precisely" select the text, but you could just double click to select the word and triple click to select the paragraph (between the line breaks; it's more accurate and takes less work). I know it's bothered people in chat when other devs click around a bunch too, so you can't make everyone happy.. just my two cents.

Putting this out here in case @ThePrimeTime can see or someone with experience or constructive criticism/suggestions. I'm 10 YOE on tooling-esche software development all spent in a small company. Been feeling stagnated (for some years) on my current job and maybe overpayed. Never got mentorship. Any ideia on how's the best way to assert if I'm suffering from impostor syndrome or actually a 1 YOE junior x10 years and need to take a few steps back?

I always tell the juniors at my work (particularly when they have imposter syndrome) that the only difference between juniors and seniors is that seniors have made and learned from more mistakes than them

I *feel* like I’m a Jr dev, but everywhere I work I end up being the go-to guy to solve the hardest problems… It’s simultaneously flattering, frustrating, and confusing. I feel like most of being a Sr engineer is just about having the determination to understand how things work rather than being a mere user. When you know how something works under the hood, no problem cannot be overcome. Mazes are much easier to solve when you start from the exit. That and ADHD. You write much better software when your mind instantly branches out to find 538 ways your code could break…

It's gotta be very biased based on where you worked and whether or not you were appropriately awarded for your work. Ever since I was an intern I had job responsibilities matching your average "intermediate" level developer. As a Junior I was pretty much already doing Senior level work, just without the pay. As a mid level, I was operating at "lead" level, being much more of a lead in my department than my actual lead, but again, without the pay or recognition. And I mean that in the broadest sense, anything you can possibly think of that a lead might do, he didn't do any of it, it was all me, as an intermediate. From setting the code standards, to leading the team, to planning and leading product development, to creating most of the things, to bug fixing most of the things. I also made our company's intake assignments, and conducted job interviews for our department. Now I finally made it to senior, but it's just a job title and more pay, nothing more than that. I never had this "dreamy" idea of a senior. When I joined the company as a junior, I was already feeling equally competent to most seniors. Now that I am officially a senior, I just feel like the promotions came awfully late. And still, I am operating as de facto lead, just without the recognition or pay. I will probably leave the company before they finally decide to properly acklowedge how crucial I've been in the past years of the company's operation.

lol ive worked on stuff with 8 hour builds 6 minutes sounds like a dream

16:00 Most decision makers will understand that having yet another meeting doesn't make sense when you explain how many dollars are wasted during that meeting when people are not doing productive work. (Simply multiply the salary of every meeting attender with the length of the meeting + some extra because attending the meeting will destroy your flow every time.) If the meeting cannot provide at least that much extra value, do not have the meeting at all.

I have a lot of responsibility right now, and when I think if I am mid or senior, I ask myself a question: do I know several ways of solving said problem (like different languages, frameworks and such) and know pros and cons of each one, and know which to choose for this task with these resources? I don't know that, since I haven't tried enough tools with meaningful variety to be an expert. So I am not a senior.

Prime is a funny guy, but Flip not zooming in even once ever is the funniest

2:35 Trying to avoid using the terminal is not different from trying to avoid learning the language when you're in a foreign country. Sure, you can survive with pointing things and gesturing but that is far from the most effective communication method. Command line interface is harder to use than point-and-click interfaces but command line is much more efficient for most things when you know the language. And a developer writing programs in any software language has to be smart enough to be able to use command line, too, so it cannot be about lack of ability either. Don't be lazy.

that was great flip.

24:31 this line on the article sounded like it was written by some lazy ass junior. I also never have fear of failure (except failure due to not seizing opportunity/taking risk, or committing to a goal). And I never think about job security: if my company fires me, I don't care because it is their loss. I will probably go somewhere else and get twice the current compensation.

highlight extemism

If you have a track record of solving things but you're a contractor and/or a middle manager doesn't like you, you can still get laid off.

I have 13 years of Dev experience, I know many languages and patterns, full stack, microservices and so on, but sometimes I feel like a junior dev One thing that became very important to me and the last 3 years is to make the code that a junior dev can understand, because this way I can use GPT more easely and delegate functions to other people easely

I would love to say that my experience was kinda unique, i had no senior developer to trust, not once ... . So i had to come up with all solutions by my self, 12 years! And now i'm seeing as an all knowing god!. At least things are working

I finally got liberated from the job, if client wants everything done by yesterday and it takes two months I won't care about management

Being a senior does not mean you can solve every problem instantly. Often enough it only means that you have more ideas about what to try to fix the problem.

11:05 me checking 1760 boxes, 440 drop downs because the system doesn't have a bulk select option.. 🙂*skip* 🙂

I feel like the guy who wrote the article was a dev for a while then moved on to a technical product manager or something outside engineering. edit: ok I just checked, he used to be a software dev then became CTO. I could feel the bs

I would think it's easier to call yourself Junior so that you never say something wrong and get known as the "Senior who is really a Junior." That being said, I still consider myself a Junior, so maybe I don't know what I'm saying.

3:49 closeup privileges revoked.

Flip is missing a payment

For people, like the guy in the chat, who are stuck in Windows, do like me at every company, and install MSYS2. I live in there, and mostly in vim in there. I can pull down my dotfiles, and it's almost as good as Linux, except no it isn't, at all, but it's a lot better than nothing.

How 2 git gud at terminal: step 1, install tldr; step 2, uninstall GUI; step 3, profit.

that CHATTER pointed out the highlighting thing and now it`s all I see 🙂

the vimagen villain origin story

Devs who don't appreciate how much damage they could do are terrifying. You've got to start with some fear of failure (e.g. catastrophic mistakes), then eventually convince yourself you're being careful enough and covering all your bases consistent with your and your team's risk tolerance.

I have 8 years programming experience, but 0 professional experience within cooperate space. I can basically do anything with the right amount of time and motivation. Now, what am i? I certainly am a hobbyist, but am i a junior or a senior. I dont know myself. I'm more a knowledge of all but master of none. I know how to write a react/vue/svelte app, an native win32 & X11 app. A 2D game engine and a Game. I even know somewhat how to writen an x86 operating system (there are still some things i'm still learning). But i keep trying to learn new shit, no matter what. So, how would you describe me? A junior or senior. Or something in between.

I'm Brazilian and I work every other saturday.

I'm 20 years developers, I still consider myself junior, mid at best, not good at math.

If no-one hires and employs juniors, no-one will ever get seniors. Companies trying to play the field and not take on the junior burden will eventually Prisoner's Dilemma the industry into a hiring crisis - it already is at the junior level, but this will only naturally progress if it isn't resolved. The solution is for everyone to suck it up and take on their share under the assumption that they'll lose most of their juniors to promotion elsewhere but will be able to poach mid and senior from elsewhere in return. And it can't be an act of charity, because then the only employers propping up the talent pipeline will be the ones most punished on the bottom line and eventually going out of business, it has to be mutual and universal

i cant tell you how many times i catch senior, staff, and principal engineers making the dumbest fucking security mistakes imaginable

10:20 On the topic of highlighting text: (And yes I know I'm taking this **way** to seriously.) You can just double click one word and *then* drag the cursor and highlight things to automatically stick to the word boundaries.

Aboutr

20:31 don't take advice from this jr UI dev

he did not infact zoom

I double click to highlight the entire words.

man the setting things to a later date is so bad. just try to get it done, and if you can't pick it up back on monday. you gotta take a break and let that unconscious cook, and if you get a breakthrough earlier go and get it done.

I dont operate under the assumption that everyone i work with is really good, because i cant lie to myself lmao. I do operate under the assumption that valuable information can come from anyone, anywhere, at anytime. I learned this in college when someone i thought was really dumb came up with a great idea i didnt think of, it reset my whole approach. Granted most of the ideas they came up with were in fact dumb and they werent the most classically intelligent, but that doesnt preclude them from seeing things you've missed or having valuable insights. If i didnt operate this way i wouldnt listen to prime. Gottem. jk :)

Who is Thor?

I feel like i lost my terminal skills.... I used to code in NANO (i was new and dumb)

How do you become good at something? by battling it ...

Everyone has hot takes until they decide they were joking.

My Man thinks he’s in VIM, it’s hilarious each time he selects a sentence 😅

are you sitting on a ball?

Misuse of "redundant" and "a.k.a." by the article author is telling.

The terms "junior" and "senior" are so ambiguous they shouldn't even be used

Dumas sees someone doing cool stuff with emacs and then goes to learn vim 🤣

minor spelling mistaker in title

It's kind of triggering that Prime always selects everything, but the first and last character. I'm weird.

Mine too -_-

I think that senior / medior / junior title is pure nonsense. There is no objective test for it. And a lot of very emotional opinion. It is something that org made up in order to justify treating people differently. People should be treated differently, we all are different. I may have strengths where other people have weaknesses, and vice versa. We can and should help each other. Blind spots (gaps) can kill a project / company. This kind of bs can leads to ignoring more "junior" members. I prefer talking about character traits and technical knowledge. Ultimately we all should work together, and all should contribute. In order to grow one needs to be able to make mistakes. Not being heard and not having an opportunity causes stagnation.

I'm sorry if I'll burst the bubble for people but the simple reality is this: junior developer - googles what he/she should do senior developer - knows exactly what he/she wants to do and googles how to do it That's really the only difference.

13:12 "It's very hard to have 10 years of experience and be 21". I'm 25 and I've been coding since the age of 10. And at the age of 12 I had to start (illegally) earning money through coding because my parents divorced and I had to live with my grandparents whose pensions were low. Though not very common, people like me also exist and we can struggle with people not taking us seriously.

1

I dont so most of this shit as a senior lead. I can still learn from even juniors, collaborate with team but help as the goto lead and also have many years of experience of failing and success. So just that knowledge of mileage. I make decision but dont give orders, i discuss ideas with all team members. Some junior devs are smart and great.

Days since Flip has rebelled: 0

I’m a “senior” right now and working on all of the above: debugging and refactoring mundane legacy code, architecting a cutting edge new system, reviewing random code changes from both junior and senior devs…in my experience seniority is just a function of having seen a lot of stuff and how much responsibility/expectation is put on you. It has nothing to do with being proficient in vim, or any other specific technology

I think being a senior developer is not about already knowing it all. It's more about being able to consider long term side-effects of decisions you make for the project. Sometimes a quick hack is all you need, sometimes a quick hack now would bite your ass in the future and typically it's the senior developer that can tell the difference.

"anxiety is a you choice" - the primeagen, 2024

@8:50 Juinor developers: "We're going to work with the very latest technologies! We're going to push the envelope! We're going to INNOVATE!" Senior developers: "Praise the Omnissiah!"