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> In Germany, you would not call yourself a senior but apply for a position as senior. Interesting. Anybody know why that is? Seems to happen in the US.

• fitpolar 9y ago
  Because there are no junior developer jobs advertised. That’s almost not sarcastic. Realistically though there is a lot ambiguity over what defines a senior dev. If postings said 10-15 years experience or experience in building stable and complex architecture across the whole lifecycle...or something similar...that would clarify things.
  • noir_lord 9y ago
    I'm refactoring a system that was written by someone with '20 years' experience. As far as I can tell it was the same 3mths repeated 80 times. I've got 11 years working on the web (and if we count the first time I sold software, 21 years as a developer). Time is only a rough approximation of skill.
  • crowbahr 9y ago
    It's very confusing honestly. If I wanted to apply for a job right now I've got 1 year professional iOS development experience and 2 years Android... So I don't really feel like a senior Android developer at all but junior positions are incredibly scarce. Most places I've seen are asking for a lot more experience or just saying senior with "deep knowledge of Android framework"... Whatever that is supposed to mean. Like are you asking me to know the exact implementation of the stock ArrayAdapter for ListView so that I can tell you why we'd need a custom one or are you looking for someone to debug Dalvik/kernal issues? Like I can architecture good clean code (and have done so for personal projects as well as professional) but I still feel junior because it feels like junior should until be 4+ years of experience.
    • lainga 9y ago
      >Like are you asking me to know the exact implementation of the stock ArrayAdapter for ListView so that I can tell you why we'd need a custom one or are you looking for someone to debug Dalvik/kernal issues? In my experience, both. They will hire for someone who knows every detail of one field, and once you're hired, put you to work on a 5-year-old bug queue for a technology you know nothing about.
      • crowbahr 9y ago
        Joy. Doesn't really entice me to leave the startup I work at.
  • stevenwoo 9y ago
    I found several in the April jobs posting. Not a lot but there were several for interns and 1-3 (max) years experience.
• rpiguy 9y ago
  We grant seniority and senior positions to much younger folks in the US. You are hired on ability, not experience. Hence you can be a Senior developer after less than five years, because you are a great programmer. It is also part of how companies maintain and poach talent here. They give you a senior title to keep you, or give you a senior title to poach you. It does vary by industry, with older, slower industries like healthcare still valuing "years of experience." But pure software companies are the wild west with job titles. We are the country that makes 30 year-olds VPs! Applying for the next job title up is all in the spirit of "shoot for the moon." Very American. In other countries, senior means you actually have seniority. In the US, it much, much less so.
  • robocat 9y ago
    > We are the country that makes 30 year-olds VPs My favourite is Goldman Sachs, with 13000 Vice Presidents. And 1000's of Managing Directors. https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/87814/goldman-has-12000-vps-and-only-promotes-261-mds-annually-there-appears-to-be-a-less-than-1-chance-of-getting-promoted https://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/87814/goldman-has-1... Not sure if it backfired on them here: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-09-04/goldman-sachs-just-says-vice-president-to-be-polite https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2014-09-04/goldman-s...