The Biggest Sign of a Senior Engineer

I am always surprised when I overhear a conversation about what makes an engineer senior, and the most important virtue is completely left out.

It’s not that people forget, or that it’s an unknown trait.

In fact, I think it’s the opposite: it’s something so well known, that we often take it for granted.

It becomes an overlooked part of software engineering, and because it’s overlooked, it makes the truly great engineers stand out.

What is that virtue? It’s patience.

I remember at my first internship, each project assigned to me would cause a sense of urgency. Always get your work done on time or early, right?

Sure, you should always aim to get your work done before the deadline, or push back if you think the deadline isn’t reasonable. I’m not advocating for late work.

What I am advocating for, however, is patience. Instead of hopping on your laptop and creating a new file/project, take a deep breath, a short walk, or a pause for a glass of water or snack.

While you’re taking a short pause, take your time to think about the project. Approximately how long will each piece of the project take? How common are mistakes in the platform you’re going to be working on, and how long can those take?

Walk yourself through the flow of the design or spec. See if you can play devil’s advocate for edge cases or something the project manager and/or designer may have missed.

Once you’ve spent some time asking yourself these questions, start writing out a rough plan for you or with your colleagues. How will the project be broken up? Who will complete each set of tasks? How can you minimize overstepping and potential merge conflicts?

Have your colleagues look over and critique your RFC. Welcome the criticism, and use…

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