How Do You Really Become A Senior Programmer?

The typical answer to the question of “how do I become better at ‘x’?” is more often than not a blank statement that sounds good, but that doesn’t really give you any direct instructions.

For example, you want to become a senior programmer? Well then, buckle down and show up daily and do the hard work and you will get there one day.

None of that is wrong. You should do all those things and more. But more than likely you were already doing those things to some degree. So, while it sounds like useful advice, there is a good chance that it didn’t help you in any real way.

So I won’t be reiterating those concepts here. I want to give real-world steps and processes that any developer can follow and that I myself followed as well in my 20 year career as a software engineer. I’ve been a junior developer and I’ve been a senior developer and the path from one to the other isn’t exactly clear, but there have been common patterns in how I’ve managed to work my way up.

For one, if you want to climb that corporate ladder and eventually get that Sr. prefix attached to your title, then you need to stand out in some way. When you are first starting out as a programmer, this can be very difficult. For one, you’re new to a company, so odds are you won’t be getting the top-tier high profile projects in your…