5 myths about the leading developers, which makes me sad

Lead developers, they are Senior developers. These are the very people who have already overfulfilled all possible tasks. These are people who enter the conversation, opening the door with his feet. They are the solution to all the problems of the company and guarantee a bright future. They do not study technology, but invent. They know the business requirements before they are formulated. And most importantly: they clearly and distinctly present themselves in five, and sometimes in ten years.

Seriously, it seems to me that there are too many expectations from seniors. Judging by the vacancies, it is such an analogue of the Soviet cosmonauts. If stackoverflow stops working in your office, all the documentation, and indeed the Internet, the compiler / interpreter version is up to 5 years old, and you urgently need to write an analogue of Radish, without using third-party frameworks and libraries, you must do it. And for a couple of hours and radiating stress.

In this article, I would like to talk a little bit about who the lead developer should not be. To debunk a few myths.

10+ years of experience

I now have these 10+ years of experience, but remembering what and how I did 10 years ago, I hope that I will never have to apply this knowledge. Technologies run, just fly and change with great speed. What was relevant yesterday - today is already bad practice, tomorrow - deprecated, the day after tomorrow - history. In our profession we do not accumulate knowledge, we just borrow them for a while, replacing them with more modern and useful ones.
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Not the baggage of knowledge is appreciated, but the ability to quickly accumulate the necessary skills. Ability to keep abreast. Be in the subject. Prevent the obsolescence of knowledge. And in any case not to get tired of this. Survives the one who has learned to enjoy the pleasure of constant recording. If I have a choice between a tech-tired veteran or graduate, with burning eyes talking about the features of a new technology, I would prefer the latter.

Independent

Independence is great! He gave the developer a task - he did it. No questions, no clarifications, no problems. An interface that accepts a task as an argument, and the output is returned by a running code. In practice, this is often harmful. Some developers, instead of clarifying business requirements, try to be independent, not to distract the product-ovner and think out everything themselves. Think out wrong.

Indeed, self-reliance is the distinctive quality of a senor. But he should make decisions only in matters of architecture and code. If you have questions about business requirements - you need to check with a special person.

Teaches beginners

The path from junior to midla is thorny and muddled. Many turns to nowhere, many roads leading to very bad areas. Often it is implied that the lord should be a guide who broadcasts interesting facts about each building in a given voice. Explains the nuances of each technology, removes all the rakes from under their feet and helps to turn crutches into elegant architectural solutions.

Teaching people is talent. And not every good programmer has one. In fact, senor should be more Yandex Maps than a guide. He must indicate the direction, make sure that the junior does not turn into a dangerous area and is on the right path. With the proper desire of the junior, this is more than enough to grow a decent middle out of it.

Indispensable

This myth is more concerned not with the requirements in the resume, but the seniors already working in the company. It often happens that seniors become irreplaceable, have a large amount of knowledge that no one else in the company possesses. And this is considered normal, because they are seniors, to know more than others.

In fact, this is wrong. No one should accumulate important knowledge. Everything should be described in the documentation. Some people believe that indispensability is a guarantee of your place in the company. Who will fire you if there is no one to answer questions without you? But your indispensability also prevents you from quietly going on vacation or quitting. And in general, if you are afraid that you will be fired - it means that at some point in your career you turned the wrong way.

Sociable

If the gentleman is sociable, has charm, charisma, knows how and loves to communicate - this is excellent. But, unfortunately, most often it is not. And not without reason, because communication is not the skill that programmers have been pumping through all their life. If I am told at the interview for a long time, how friendly the company is in the company, how they all go to shish-kebabs once a month and take each other to work - I would rather refuse this vacancy, realizing that I’m required not only to do my job, but be pronounced extrovert. And I do not specialize in this.

However, this does not mean that you need to come to the office, sit at the computer, put on headphones and close from the whole world. Our work is teamwork, and it involves communication with colleagues. You can be an introvert in your free time, but during work you are a team player.

Total

Compared with the vacancies of five years ago, companies have made a big step forward. No longer list all the terms that can be heard in any corner of the office. Jobs are made by real professionals and really look attractive. However, time after time, I see myths in the vacancies that are in the form of requirements. And every time when they ask me to be friendly or teach juniors, I get a little sad.