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  • Hey, guys.

  • And welcome back to another episode.

  • I am the attack lead, and today we're back to drinking classic Lacroix.

  • I wanted to talk today about the difference between a junior engineer and the senior engineer.

  • How could become a senior engineer?

  • You may be a junior engineer right now, and you may be struggling and trying to figure out Well, how can you take that next big step and ramp up your career growth?

  • I can take these the next level hacking and skyrocket your career growth.

  • And I have a few excellent tips to help propel you into the light of success into a senior software engineer like myself.

  • So now what most junior engineers don't realize is how difficult it is to be a senior software engineer.

  • It is a ton more work, a ton more responsibility, and it may be a level of demand and pressure.

  • Now you may not be able to handle.

  • You may not be prepared for it.

  • One thing to realize is just the sheer amount of responsibility that senior engineers like myself have to handle is just mind boggling.

  • There's just so much responsibility that I need to opposed.

  • Um there's probably nobody more responsible than myself.

  • I am the most responsible person that I know.

  • I pick up after myself.

  • I wash mound dishes.

  • I clean my own room.

  • Have anybody ever asked, Well, who wants to be responsible?

  • I'm more than ready to say, Yeah, I'll be responsible.

  • So just being responsible is a huge factor and being a senior engineer now, the other thing I've got going from myself, which you may not have going for yourself and that qualifies me to be a senior software engineer is my age.

  • I'm probably older than you.

  • So just that additional age should bring him with that years of additional experience, wisdom, knowledge know how In general experience if you're in your low twenties, you're probably a junior engineer.

  • Once you get into your thirties like me, well, naturally, I'm a senior software engineer Now.

  • The other thing you can do to get yourself into the row of a senior software engineer is to start re factoring coat.

  • The more code you re factor, the more senior you become.

  • One thing I've seen some people do is re engineer everything into a plug INS based architect er such that every single feature is created like a plug in.

  • Nothing has done the normal way anymore.

  • Everything is done using adapters, mixing plug ins, and just coming up with this system can qualify you to become a senior software engineer.

  • See, let me tell you about the problem with you and the problem.

  • Why you're a junior software engineer and it's because the identity has locked onto you.

  • You identify yourself as a junior saw for engineer, and you can't break out of that because the people around you everyone you know has reinforced that identity of junior software.

  • Engineer onto yourself, and it's very difficult to break out of that.

  • I would say that this problem is very difficult to overcome, because even if you yourself came, grow beyond that and view yourself as non junior, other people will still view you as a junior engineer.

  • What some people might do in this scenario is just start switching jobs.

  • And the more jobs they switch, the more senior they become because they can redefine their identity as senior, even though they're not.

  • Some people just keep shooting jobs, and eventually you can get to CT else that that's just by doing this simple little trick, you may have noticed that I have some book, and this is intentional because this additional book that I've built onto myself has helped establish my authority.

  • It makes me look like a more dominant figure, like a silverback gorilla and this body book that you can build up to if you were to drink like protein shakes and milk and just a lot, maybe drink some beers because even heavy a beer belly can help establish that size.

  • And the size is a big factor in helping you establish your credibility on authority within the workplace.

  • Now, this might be more challenging if you were working remotely, but thankfully, most companies forbid you from working remotely so you can go into the office show off the size of your body, the book, and that could just make you a more dominant figure.

  • We humans we like to think that we're so sophisticated, but the truth is, we're just animals were like gorillas and gorillas respect this over back.

  • Who is the biggest bookie ist animal?

  • And the little known fact is with that's the truth with humans as well.

  • We'll know a trick I like to do is join the startup, and that started.

  • It's easier to get nice titles like and one start up.

  • Every single person was named member of Technical Step.

  • That sounds pretty cool.

  • If you're in the one or two persons started, you could essentially call yourself CTO because that's essentially what you are.

  • One key trade of a senior software engineer is to win arguments, and you know you can win these arguments using any number of tactical tricks as you can.

  • You want to study up on policies like personal attacks, selection, bias, sampling, bias, survivorship bias, the railing conversations, microaggression, rambling strawman attacks, hiding information, personal threats and any number of other tricks you can use for your arsenal to win arguments.

  • And you want to be careful about this because if you lose enough technical arguments, you can actually demote yourself back to junior a software engineer and lose that senior software engineer status.

  • You want to shut those junior software engineers down and let them know who's bus.

  • One key difference between senior software engineers and junior software engineers is senior engineers.

  • Don't just coat if our you're doing this coding, even if you're coding a lot and really high quality coat.

  • You're not really at the senior level yet.

  • Seen yourself for engineers.

  • Spend more time strategizing and thinking broadly about overall direction, which is why you want to lower your code output.

  • If you're pushing out too much coat, people start to think, Well, you're just spending all your time coding.

  • You're not doing anything else, even if you are.

  • You want lower your code output, and the more you lower, the more senior you will become.

  • Along with that, you want to reduce the amount of time you're spending at your desk.

  • If you're sitting at your desk, everyone knows what you're doing.

  • Don't just say Well, yeah, I see Patrick.

  • He's right there.

  • He's just sitting there.

  • He's not doing anything.

  • He's not a senior.

  • But if I'm not at the desk, what people don't really know what I'm doing.

  • I could be has some important meeting.

  • I could be working are strategizing about some high level coterie factor you don't really know when you leave a little to the imagination.

  • People's fears take over and they start to understand.

  • Well, this person may be more dominant, maybe more superior than me you want.

  • Just let that fear playing their minds and let that work to your advantage.

  • One other thing you can do is start a YouTube channel.

  • I've seen a lot of junior engineers start YouTube channels, and soon they're calling themselves senior software engineers.

  • Much like myself.

  • Just having a platform to spew out your verbal garbage can help establish a sense of authority for yourself.

  • And soon after, you'll find yourself surrounded by people who can't even coat who have no idea what code even.

  • Is your at least more senior than them?

  • You start buying into that story, and pretty soon you're seeing yourself or engineer senior suffer.

  • Engineers also take a lot of initiative.

  • Initiative is the game, and what I like to do is just initiate things like it's not so much about finishing anything.

  • It is about starting something so well I'd like to do is just start calling meetings.

  • And I would just schedule weekly meetings scheduled as many meetings as I can.

  • Once everyone gets into the meeting and the meeting starts well, I mean, I'm not really sure what's supposed to happen.

  • Then it's It's not my problem than you know, Like I just started the meeting.

  • I initiated that, and my job is over by that point.

  • What happens from there on?

  • I don't know, and I don't care.

  • Senior engineers also have a reputation of bringing things up, a level such that were not deep into the weeds, talking about technical, nitty gritty details.

  • Anytime I see my co workers start talking about little technical details here and there, I would just stop them and say, Hey, I know you guys love talking about these little technical details.

  • Let's just stop there.

  • Let's bring the discussions up a level and talk about the overall strategy.

  • The overall planned the road map, and we don't need the details.

  • So what I'd like to do is I work without my headphones on so that I can hear anybody talking.

  • And as soon as I hear a technical discussion that's going into little nitty gritty details, I'll nip that conversation in the butt.

  • I would just go there and just stop that conversation right there.

  • That helps us keep focused on the overall wider strategy.

  • If the project succeeds, then you can bet that I would be there to take credit for, and that will help celebrate and be self congratulatory and every regard that I can to make sure that I get as much credit as I can for my team success.

  • Now.

  • If the project fails for any reason whatsoever, then it is also part of my responsibility and my job to find out who's to blame, who was responsible, what the problems were helped triage those problems and find out that whoever was the source of this problem just re mediated immediately and that the re mediation is re mediated immediately.

  • My final tip to you is you become a senior software engineer when you're ready.

  • You know, any time it's your car, it's your choice.

  • When you feel that you're ready when you're ready to take the plunge, then just do it.

  • Go for it, You know, on Lee, you can tell yourself when you're ready to become a senior software engineer.

  • If you feel that you're ready to become a senior engineer right now, today I am fine.

  • Go ahead, do it.

  • But if you feel that you need another year or two, then take your time.

  • It's your call.

  • I've seen some people just take the plunge and just say, Well, its starting today, there won't be a senior cell friends here, and that's fine.

  • That's great.

  • You know, you can see how it works up.

  • If it doesn't work out, you could go back to be engineer engineer.

  • You know, I've seen some people just flip back and forth every other year from junior self friend junior to seeing yourself wrench in your junior senior and junior senior.

  • And that's fine.

  • It's whoever works for them, whatever works for you so that I'll do it for me.

  • I hope this clarified the differences for you between as junior software engineer and the senior software engineer.

  • If you like the video, given the like and subscribe, and I'll see you next time.

Hey, guys.

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