What Makes a Good Senior Developer?

Recently, I’ve found myself pondering this question: “What does it mean to be a good senior developer?” or, “What is the real difference between a senior and a junior developer?”

The simplest answer might be experience, yet I'm increasingly curious about how this experience gap translates into business value, justifying the different levels of responsibility and compensation between senior and junior roles.

In fact, this question first came up during a cultural interview with a potential employer. The interviewer asked, “What do you think makes a good senior developer?” Instinctively, I shared my thoughts:

“I think it’s someone who can bring real business value. Achieving that requires the ability to take feedback well and develop in several ways.”

Personally, I believe that the ability to create business value is the most crucial aspect of being a good senior developer. Although defining “business value” in words can be tricky, I feel that I’ve gained a clearer sense of what skills and behaviors underpin it.

Business Value

Take, for example, well-written code. Good code is portable and adaptable, and if abstracted properly, it can become a library that other developers can easily use. The more people use this library, the more value that code generates. This logic can apply to numerous other tasks as well.

I began to think that business value might be something along these lines. So, what skills or qualities would one need to become someone capable of creating this kind of value?

Openness to Feedback

The first is openness to feedback. Feedback is everywhere—it could come from a colleague sitting next to you or from discussions within the company. In essence, it’s about understanding requirements. Without a solid grasp of requirements, it’s hard to deliver meaningful results. Thus, to provide value at work, we must start by understanding what the company expects from us or how we can make a positive contribution.

Openness to feedback is, in a way, a form of metacognition, though it’s not easy to practice. Feedback is often something we’d rather not hear. It’s easy to dismiss a negative comment as simply unpleasant. However, I think good senior developers have the ability to process this feedback and turn it into valuable output. While it sounds simple, it’s incredibly challenging to execute well. Looking back, there have been times when I absorbed feedback in unproductive ways. As a senior developer, mistakes like these are something I can no longer afford.

In Conclusion

The idea of “business value” really struck me after watching the following video:

Creating business value in anything we do is challenging. To put it bluntly, it’s almost as if we have to treat ourselves and our outputs as products. Good music feels incomplete without listeners, just as good code feels unfulfilled if no one uses it. I’ll conclude with the thought that business value arises when various elements harmonize in balance.