Ask HN: What do you do in your coding job as a senior which a fresher can't?

[ajax33]

I have noticed that as a result of the vast ecosystem of open source software, web application development has become extremely rapid, to the point that a person fresh out of college can, in a few weeks become a productive backend or frontend developer to the extent that they can compete with their more experienced colleagues on delivering projects in time.

Is this situation unique to my company or is this true elsewhere as well? What can a senior engineer do to ensure they don't become irrelevant and replaced by cheap freshers?

[elmerfud]

In my experience the senior title is directly related to see problems in a broader scope or total scope. If you're given a sufficiently scoped task then jr/sr should be able to complete it with similar efforts.

Often times tasks are poorly scoped or insufficient research has been done on it. This is where the senior engineer brings his experience in to play to be able to complete it.

To not become irrelevant you need to be familiar not only with the language, but best practices, and external impact and integration of your changes across all levels. Being able to address issues before the QA stage is critical. So it's not just fulfilling the story it's understanding what the story intended to do and possibly revising it.

[gigglepig]

True. As a senior engineer is not to do the coding itself. Your task is oversight, seeing the bigger picture, deciding architecture, managing the juniors under you.

[sharemywin]

I'm not sure but I think new engineers are paid pretty good. Also, how do you know a new person isn't going to quit? Do you have a good attitude? Work ethic? knowledge of the code base. experience to know when a solution is good or bad. Also, a lot of the "soft" skills take time to develop. willingness to learn new stuff.

Knowing how to do something while required is only small part of the overall job.