[z3t4]

I would consider you a “senior” programmer? Mainly because you know that you do not know much. While a junior or intermediate programmer think they know everything. There are of course more to it, like when you are stuck on something; you ask the senior programmer, that will probably have solved it ten times in the past. Or if you want to know what the best method is to do this, you ask the senior programmer, that have done it hundreds of times and thus found out the optimal way, with all edge cases included. So I would say it's mostly about experience, and then expertise. Also, a senior programmer should have gone though at least two paradigm shifts.

[zumu]

I'm interested in this 'two-paradigm shifts' rubric. Could you elaborate?

[z3t4]

Programming languages and best practices evolve. For example object oriented programming, functional programming, goto instructions, global variables, include files, module systems, classes, template languages, PHP, MVC, XML, JSON, unit tests, test driven development, Git, JavaScript frameworks, SQL, noSQL, sequential, asynchronous, multi-threaded, etc.