What defines a developer

[BradAtWork]

Hi Everyone.

I'm looking at .Net job adverts, and I want to now what the difference been these are.

Junion .Net Developer
.Net Developer
Senior .Net Developer

In my current job i dont work for a development company, and i'm not offically a developer, but i have made a few .Net applications for my company.

Been doing this for about 2 years. Not programming full time though.

If I left, i'm wondering what kind of position I could get.

My last few applications have been quite complex, fully OOP.

I know DirectoryServices and Data.SQL quite well.

I know threading well, reflection pretty well. I've used inheritance and interfaces in my apps.

All my apps are designed by me, no help from anyone else at all.

Last app was 12,000 lines. A service, so no form code, all code was hand done.

FYI - I'm in Australia.

 

[Markbnj]

You're Junior. Until you've worked on production apps on a team, utilizing a process from requirements through design and implementation, I don't think you'd qualify under whatever corporate HR scheme produces those labels.

 

[BradAtWork]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
You're Junior. Until you've worked on production apps on a team, utilizing a process from requirements through design and implementation, I don't think you'd qualify under whatever corporate HR scheme produces those labels.

I was thinking something like that, i don't have the process experiance.

However, where I live there is a massive labour shortage, so I don't think companys can be that picky.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: BradAtWork

Originally posted by: Markbnj
You're Junior. Until you've worked on production apps on a team, utilizing a process from requirements through design and implementation, I don't think you'd qualify under whatever corporate HR scheme produces those labels.

I was thinking something like that, i don't have the process experiance.

However, where I live there is a massive labour shortage, so I don't think companys can be that picky.

So you start with a smaller one that maybe isn't as picky, or is willing to overlook the credentials and resume because they like the way you think, and then you start building up experience. That's how pretty much all of us got in not so many years ago.

 

[BradAtWork]

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: BradAtWork

Originally posted by: Markbnj
You're Junior. Until you've worked on production apps on a team, utilizing a process from requirements through design and implementation, I don't think you'd qualify under whatever corporate HR scheme produces those labels.

I was thinking something like that, i don't have the process experiance.

However, where I live there is a massive labour shortage, so I don't think companys can be that picky.

So you start with a smaller one that maybe isn't as picky, or is willing to overlook the credentials and resume because they like the way you think, and then you start building up experience. That's how pretty much all of us got in not so many years ago.

Alright. I think I could get 5 interviews within a week so I imagine one would give me a job.

 

[imported_Dhaval00]

Originally posted by: BradAtWork

Originally posted by: Markbnj

Originally posted by: BradAtWork

Originally posted by: Markbnj
You're Junior. Until you've worked on production apps on a team, utilizing a process from requirements through design and implementation, I don't think you'd qualify under whatever corporate HR scheme produces those labels.

I was thinking something like that, i don't have the process experiance.

However, where I live there is a massive labour shortage, so I don't think companys can be that picky.

So you start with a smaller one that maybe isn't as picky, or is willing to overlook the credentials and resume because they like the way you think, and then you start building up experience. That's how pretty much all of us got in not so many years ago.

Alright. I think I could get 5 interviews within a week so I imagine one would give me a job.

Hah. I used to think down the same lines when I graduated. There were times when I would have back to back interviews. And then reality struck.

 

[WannaFly]

I've often thought about this too - I've been working a a .NET developer for 5+ years, but have learned as I went along, but know many other languages. I now have one programmer that works for me. We do things kind of "on the fly" and dont have processes as a large programming team would (daily builds/etc) and some of the stuff we do isn't really OOP. On the other hand, I've written an entire POS and inventory management system, a records management system, an app that uses legacy COM components to interact with other networks, AD authentication, any countless other Things. I'm definately not junior, i'd say almost senior, I just am not as familiar with how large programming teams work and their processes, it's just too time consuming and hard to justify on the projects we do here.

 

[Drakkon]

Where I've worked in the past its usually ment as your position on the team. Junior ment you were a peon doing all the tedious work.
Simple interface stuff, coding simple routines, expected to learn from standard developers.
Standard was you handles more complex stuff, and once you got a good portion done you passed it off to a junior, but still doing much of the grunt work.
Senior usually meant development lead - would parse out the projects, lead the team in development once the initial project was received from the project manager, would make the reports back to the project manager, and handle more complex chunks of code and would have big massive whiteboards filled with diagrams and database layouts.

 

[mmmbrains]

Drakkon's pretty much dead-on.

To the OP, sounds like you didn't start as a dev, maybe didn't go to school for it, but certainly enjoy the experience. I'd think you'd fall into the junior category, but I wouldn't hesitate to apply for the mid-level stuff either, because if you don't have the chops for it you'll find out pretty quick, and they'll know pretty quickly as well.

 

[Bacardi151]

I agree with what's been said and would second that it can't hurt to apply for other positions than "junior dev/entry level". From what I hear, experience is what companies look for. Most positions doesn't state the titled developer position but rather the number of experience the applicant needs for the position in question. Entry level would be 0-2 years, 2-5 years would be a "standard"...and so forth.

On another note, it blows my mind the type of tasks a junior/entry level developer has at other companies. This being the first company I work for (straight out of college), apparently does things much different and seemingly take full advantage of us. My second day I had already been assigned tasks to fix and add minor featuers to the application. In other words, my duties/responsibilities are somewhat synched up to a "standard" developer, and we had to learn from the senior developers. Granted the dev teams in our company are fairly small and fast paced.

 

[Argo]

Junior Developer: Usually works on individual peicies of software under supervision of senior developer.

Mid level developer: Usually owns delivery of individual modules. Is involved in design of said modules under supervision of senior developers.

Senior developer: Usually owns entire application or multiple applications. Owns all aspects of development process including design, architecture, implementation and delivery. Responsible for mentoring more junior developers.

 

[Apathetic]

I really big part of what the senior developer(s) do is review the written specification ("the spec"). This means make sure there aren't any contradictions, logic holes, or other types of "english problems" in it. Unless the spec was written by someone with a lot of IT/technical writing experience, those things are almost certainly going to be in there. For a complex project, this can take an awful lot of time.

Dave

 

[ahurtt]

The greater the ratio of how much money you make to how much code you actually write, the more senior you are.