[austin-cheney]

In my experience, especially in web development, senior developer just means excellent with boilerplate and an awareness of many tools. Thats it.

The problem is nobody bothers to define competency and very few people can actually program for the web. I mean almost nobody. Countless times here on HN I have had hiring managers tell these people don’t exist.

The way I would define competence in web development is super simple:

* Can you program in JavaScript. I do not mean React, Vue, jquery, or other abstraction bullshit. I actually mean can you program in that language, as in writing original software. This eliminates about 95% of developers.

* Can you program outside the browser in any language? This can still be JavaScript via Node or Deno but it could also be Go, Python, or Java.

* Do you understand transmission debugging for HTTP, WebSockets, session management, and messaging as an event?

The problem is most developers can at least half way accomplish the second bullet point and then attempt to fake the rest. It’s like toddlers playing pretend, which is why everything in both the startup world and corporate world are generally the same copy/paste spa app. Copy/paste is about all the developers can do.

There are many developers that can do much more, but work culture often seems hostile to originality and so they keep it to themselves for side projects.

[pproe]

Why stop there? If you can't write your own browser engine or router firmware, are you really competent enough?

[austin-cheney]

If you can’t program why pretend to be a programmer? What could possibly go wrong?

JavaScript is not assembly and life isn’t so hard to warrant the level of sympathy asinine comments like this expect. I am merely suggesting people should know how to do what they claim, and clearly they cannot. I have no sympathy for that.

[snapcaster]

A lot of this list seems like gatekeeping as opposed to things actually relevant for most software engineering jobs

[austin-cheney]

That depends upon expectations set by leadership. I wouldn’t call someone who can’t do more than copy/paste React boilerplate any kind of engineer. At a bank everyone who is more than a junior employee wears the title Vice President, but almost none of those people are even in management.

The choice employers must make is whether it’s cheaper to overpay for someone who cannot do what they are hired for or spend the extra time waiting for someone who can. So the flip side is that hiring programmers that can’t program is gatekeeping for the hiring managers.