I like the post but I’d add senior is also the instinct to take risks. I was once at a client in NY with an ASP.NET code base that used the compile at runtime capability (like Java used to). The C# source was being pushed to the web server.
I ran a compile and the code was riddled with errors. So I went to the PM and explained the code needed to compile and I needed a day to clean it up.
I refactored the entire project to compile and deploy that way. After that the development went very fast.
The hilarious part was the three devs who’d gone on vacation came back and thought what I’d done was “wrong”.
But the client said we (consultants) had done in two weeks what they couldn’t do in six months.
I ran a compile and the code was riddled with errors. So I went to the PM and explained the code needed to compile and I needed a day to clean it up.
I refactored the entire project to compile and deploy that way. After that the development went very fast.
The hilarious part was the three devs who’d gone on vacation came back and thought what I’d done was “wrong”.
But the client said we (consultants) had done in two weeks what they couldn’t do in six months.
That’s what a senior engineer does.