A response to the Gypsy's Sr. Developer Attributes
So my buddy and former student -- the webgypsy -- has written a post that he attributes to the lessons he learned from me. My initial response is "Oh no, don't pin this one on me." So I decided to have a little fun and respond in a point by point manner (it's all in fun, don't take me too seriously)...
#1 (A Senior Developer needs to be a leader.) - He mentions that if you're not a natural leader you might not be cut out for this... I'm glad you think I'm a "natural leader" Dave. Could you send some of those drugs you're taking to me? Mainly, I'm looking to get the project done despite my team sometimes. I have thrown people off my teams if they weren't willing to follow instructions (I guess when I am working with a willing team I'm not too bad of leader... but leadership skils aren't my personal strong suit.. Dave must have gotten this one from Eric, so don't blame me.
#2 (A Senior Developer needs to be a teacher.) - I thoroughly agree; as long as your junior programmers are teachable otherwise you get them away from your project or the parts of the project that can hurt it.
#3 (A Senior Developer needs to be compassionate.) - only goes so far (in case you haven't guessed)... The Junior Developer or new hire is "FNG" and stays that way to the developer is not given a chance to screw up (for those who don't know what "FNG" is it's "F-ing New Guy" as in "That FNG nearly screwed up the whole project! Why did they hire him/her?"). Again, compassionate to a point.
#4 (A Senior Developer needs to understands customer service.) - The real point to remember here is that the client pays the bills. The client may or may not have a clue what they want, and if they do know what they want they can't explain it to you, so be nice.
#5 (A Senior Developer needs to understand the technology.) - The reason for this is that nothing else matters to us geeks.. new toys...
Some additional thoughts... Just because you have 5 years of experience doesn't necessarily make you a senior developer. At times I don't feel like one. As I have said repeatedly here, I want to get better at what I do... if you have that attitude, then you'll be great!
Also, be careful who you hire it may end up biting you in the butt.
Finally evoking a healthy respect (do I dare say fear) in junior developers is always helpful when it comes to leading/instructing them.