As I promised, here is post on Knowledge Evaluation for the Senior level.

Definition of a Senior Level Developer

In most of the sources, Senior level is defined as level on which person is responsible for building complex components with minimal guidance and being unsupervised. Also person is an expert in language and has experience in business areas. I personally like definitions, where they additionally indicate person’s interest in software and bringing business value to the client.

So, who is Senior Developer?

Senior Developer is guy, who can and likes to code on any level of complexity, therefor he is able to build certain project parts, taking responsibility for the work being done. He can and likes to mentor and teach other members of the team; keeping his skills up to date and bringing this knowledge to the team he is leading by example.

For me being Senior Developer isn’t just label, that is indicated somewhere in the company by HR. It isn’t only list of responsibilities/duties I will be stick to. It is significant breakthrough in my career, that blesses me to move on. Moreover it is another step to self-actualize myself by accomplishing my life goals. Again, it is part of my RoadMap (I feel, that I need some post on it, but cannot till map is rolled in one or few places.)

Knowledge Evaluation

Except of taking into account my performance, company should always evaluate my knowledge to proceed with promotion.

My theoretical knowledge of programing and language isn’t under question

For some reason, my evaluators were not concerned about my theoretical knowledge of the core programming and language. That is why I got only few questions about database access, code quality and few other. Btw, for Med evaluation, most of the questions were exactly on core .net and surrounding things.

Non-coding aspects played more evident role in evaluation
Our meeting was about to find out if I’m able successfully communicate and work with team/client, if I’m competent in mentoring/coaching more junior staff, also how would I proceed with project management, like evaluating requirements, managing risks, doing proposals, and providing estimates on difficult matters. Of course there were some questions on configuration management and product deployment and brief go through surrounding project developing stuff.

Personal outcome

For me it was good time and my personal outcome for myself is that complete understanding of engineering management and requirements will come only with facing more real world situations, since simple theoretical knowledge isn’t enough.

Feedback

They did not give me official feedback yet, but I feel confident about positive one.



How will I proceed with new position?

First of all I will do all possible to not disappoint my management. Also I will work hard on keeping my brand up to people expectations and higher. Of course I will continue doing more than it is expected from me. 

Any congratulations and comments are welcome!