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What Defines a Senior Developer? - Systematically Communicating Value

Summary

This episode continues the series on what differentiates senior engineers from junior ones, focusing on the critical skill of systematically communicating value. The host emphasizes that career advancement is not solely about producing value but equally about translating that value to the right audience.

The discussion introduces basic communication theory, explaining the model of sender, receiver, message, medium, feedback, and noise. A key insight is that most communication problems occur during the encoding (how you formulate your message) and decoding (how the receiver interprets it) phases. The host uses the example of a performance review bullet point list to illustrate how raw experience gets encoded, transmitted, and potentially misinterpreted.

The episode argues that senior engineers recognize their responsibility to manage this messaging process. They understand that value doesn’t exist in a vacuum and that their career growth is loosely correlated with their ability to tie the value they produce to a clear narrative that stakeholders can recognize and attribute correctly. This involves considering the context and potential noise that might distort the message.

Finally, the host encourages listeners to apply this perspective to various workplace communications like status updates, standups, and retros. These are all opportunities to build a narrative of value. The episode concludes by suggesting ways to deepen understanding through discussion with peers or joining the Developer Tea community.

Recommendations

Communities

  • Developer Tea Discord — The host recommends joining the Developer Tea Discord community to continue the conversation and embed the knowledge deeper through discussion with other engineers.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to senior vs junior engineer differentiation — The episode begins by framing the discussion as a continuation on what differentiates senior engineers, clarifying that these are behavioral traits rather than company-specific requirements or industry standards. The host notes that titles are fluid in software development but the behaviors discussed benefit most senior roles.
  • 00:02:15 — The key trait: Communicating value systematically — The host introduces the core trait for this episode: a perspective shift from merely producing value to systematically communicating it. He explains that a junior engineer often stops at producing value, while a senior engineer understands that career growth is heavily dependent on translating that value to an audience that matters.
  • 00:04:02 — Applying basic communication theory to career growth — The discussion delves into basic communication theory, outlining the model of sender, receiver, message, medium, feedback, and noise. The host explains this model is critical because career potential is moderated by the ability to produce a message, send it to the right receiver, and have it received as valuable.
  • 00:06:40 — The critical role of encoding and decoding — The host identifies encoding and decoding as the most underserved parts of the messaging model. He uses the example of encoding six months of work into a performance review bullet list. The receiver then decodes this, trying to extrapolate its meaning for the company and the engineer’s growth, a process where the message can change significantly.
  • 00:08:49 — Environmental noise and the senior engineer’s responsibility — Using the performance review context, the host illustrates how environmental noise (like a manager reading many similar summaries) can affect message reception. The key takeaway is that senior engineers recognize their responsibility to manage messaging so the value they produce is correctly recognized and attributed, bridging the loose correlation between producing value and career growth.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2023-02-27T08:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:11:44

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] We’re continuing our discussion today on what differentiates a senior engineer from a more

[00:00:17] junior engineer.

[00:00:19] As we disclaimed in the last episode, this is not a specific requirement that a given

[00:00:28] company would have.

[00:00:32] These are not based on some kind of standard because our industry doesn’t really have a

[00:00:36] specific standard that every company follows.

[00:00:40] We don’t have any kind of regulatory licensing or anything like that.

[00:00:45] That’s not to say that you can’t go and get some kind of license or some kind of certification,

[00:00:51] but ultimately your leveling in the company that you’re in is going to be based on whatever

[00:00:57] that company’s policy is, whatever they have adopted, because this industry isn’t really

[00:01:03] regulated by an external governing body, at least in the United States.

[00:01:08] That’s the case.

[00:01:09] I’m not sure if that’s true everywhere, but generally speaking, titles are kind of fluid

[00:01:15] in the software development industry.

[00:01:19] But that said, for most of the more senior roles that I’ve ever encountered in my career,

[00:01:25] most of the job descriptions that you’ll see, most leadership or tech lead roles that you’ll

[00:01:30] find, they’re going to benefit from what we talk about in these episodes.

[00:01:37] Because this is not just a list of skills, it’s not a list of black and white qualifications.

[00:01:41] These are behaviors that set you apart as a senior engineer.

[00:01:47] These are behaviors that set you apart.

[00:01:49] In the last episode, we talked about taking your perception or your perspective of a situation

[00:01:57] from static, which would be a more junior perspective, to dynamic, which is a more senior

[00:02:02] perspective.

[00:02:03] And we talked about the three axis model.

[00:02:05] If you missed that, go back and listen to it.

[00:02:07] I encourage you, if you’re interested in growing as an engineer, that’s a good episode to start

[00:02:12] with if you’re just coming to the show.

[00:02:15] But in today’s episode, I want to discuss another trait, another trait of a senior engineer.

[00:02:22] And this is another simple perspective shift, a simple perspective shift that you can make

[00:02:27] today.

[00:02:28] All right, so you probably know that your job, your career, is highly correlated on

[00:02:37] your ability to produce value.

[00:02:42] Your ability to use your skills, use your talent, use your energy to produce something

[00:02:49] valuable.

[00:02:51] But this is usually where junior engineers stop.

[00:02:54] They spend all of their energy and their existing skills to try to produce as much value as

[00:03:00] possible, as much value as they can in a given window of time.

[00:03:05] And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this approach.

[00:03:11] It leaves a lot on the table if you always do it this way.

[00:03:16] Specifically, your career is not just directly correlated.

[00:03:21] It’s not a one-to-one correlation with the value that you produce.

[00:03:25] It is arguably just as affected by your ability to translate that value to someone who cares.

[00:03:34] In other words, value doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

[00:03:38] You can’t just produce something that you believe is valuable and close your eyes and

[00:03:43] wish that that’s going to result in something good for you.

[00:03:48] Your ability to communicate that value to some audience that matters.

[00:03:53] This is a critical part of your career.

[00:03:57] We’re going to talk about some basic communication theory here because your career is going to

[00:04:02] be moderated by your ability to effectively produce a message, send that message to the

[00:04:12] right receiver in a way that the message is received as valuable.

[00:04:20] In other words, your potential in your career.

[00:04:25] This is for most cases, not every case, right?

[00:04:28] We don’t live in a perfectly fair system that treats everybody exactly the same and

[00:04:34] rewards everybody exactly the same, but your job and your career is heavily dependent on

[00:04:41] your ability to tell what your value is to the right people.

[00:04:47] The basic communication theory, this is very important for you to understand both for this

[00:04:52] and for many other situations that you’ll encounter in your life and your career.

[00:04:58] Basic communication model consists of a sender and one or more receivers.

[00:05:06] This is the fundamental concept is you have a message, you as the sender, you formulate

[00:05:11] the message, you use some medium to translate that message from you, the sender, to a receiver.

[00:05:19] The receiver optionally will provide feedback to your message.

[00:05:24] This is a response that is directly triggered by whatever that original message is, which

[00:05:32] acts as a message on its own.

[00:05:36] It’s a return message and it’s through a medium as well.

[00:05:41] Finally, in that medium, whatever that medium is, there will be some kind of noise.

[00:05:48] This model of interaction or messaging model is kind of a reciprocal or a cyclic model.

[00:05:56] You send a message, you get feedback that acts as a new message, which then itself gets

[00:06:01] feedback and it continues on like that.

[00:06:04] This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about communication theory, but it’s critically

[00:06:09] important for this discussion because we’re not just talking about a message that you

[00:06:16] might give your manager in a one-on-one.

[00:06:19] Really we’re talking about a more systematic message.

[00:06:23] How do you present yourself so that your value is clearly demonstrated?

[00:06:29] Part of that messaging model, which is likely the most underserved or forgotten part of

[00:06:35] the messaging model, is the encoding and the decoding.

[00:06:40] You as the sender, you’re encoding information.

[00:06:45] Now this information for you is somewhat raw.

[00:06:49] You know what the information means.

[00:06:52] You were present for the actions that you took as an engineer, maybe the thing that

[00:06:57] you created.

[00:06:59] All of that experience, you’re trying to encode into some kind of compressed format.

[00:07:06] For example, a bullet point list of what you did in the last six months.

[00:07:12] This encoding doesn’t just have one kind of output.

[00:07:15] Certainly it doesn’t just result in words that you write for a performance review or

[00:07:20] something.

[00:07:21] It may also be encoded into your behaviors as a part of kind of an overall messaging

[00:07:29] strategy that you have.

[00:07:31] But let’s keep it simple.

[00:07:33] You’re encoding a message about your performance over the last six months.

[00:07:37] It may result in that bullet point list.

[00:07:40] It gets sent across some kind of medium.

[00:07:42] Maybe it’s the platform that you use for these kinds of reviews.

[00:07:47] And then the receiver of this message, they’re going to decode it.

[00:07:53] So they may look at this bullet point list and try to extrapolate out in their minds

[00:07:58] what exactly it means.

[00:08:00] How does this translate to value for the company or how does this translate to growth for you

[00:08:06] as an engineer or their belief that you may be able to step up a level in your career?

[00:08:12] So all of this encoding and decoding can change the message pretty significantly.

[00:08:18] And as it turns out, the majority of communication problems happen because of the encoding and

[00:08:23] the decoding.

[00:08:25] The other thing that may happen is the noise that may be introduced could be poorly attributed

[00:08:30] to you.

[00:08:31] That is, something about the way that the message gets translated to the receiver could

[00:08:38] change the message itself or could change the way that the receiver decodes it because

[00:08:44] it’s been kind of mutated by whatever environment it was in.

[00:08:49] A good example of this is, in fact, performance reviews.

[00:08:53] If your manager has read five or 10 other summaries of people’s work, they may start

[00:09:00] to see this bullet point list as just another one of the same.

[00:09:05] This means that the effectiveness of your communication may suffer from that noise,

[00:09:12] the environmental noise, the context in which your message was sent.

[00:09:17] So this episode is not a tutorial in how to send the correct message so that your career

[00:09:22] will grow.

[00:09:23] That would be too much of a complicated topic to cover in this episode of the podcast.

[00:09:28] But the important thing to recognize here is that just by thinking about this model,

[00:09:34] just by recognizing that the value that you produce in your career doesn’t stand on its

[00:09:40] own, you have some responsibility to communicate that value so that the value can be recognized

[00:09:46] properly, so it can be attributed properly, so that you can actually grow in your career

[00:09:52] as a result of the value that you’ve generated.

[00:09:55] These are loosely correlated events, and your responsibility is to manage that messaging

[00:10:02] so that the value gets tied correctly.

[00:10:05] Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:10:08] Hopefully this was a valuable concept to you.

[00:10:12] Maybe you’ll think about your next performance review a little bit differently, your next

[00:10:15] status update with your team, your next standup, your next retro, all of these messages that

[00:10:21] you create to your colleagues, to your manager, whatever the situation is, these are opportunities

[00:10:29] for you to generate that narrative of value for yourself.

[00:10:35] Thanks so much for listening.

[00:10:36] If you enjoyed this discussion, please leave a review in iTunes.

[00:10:39] We don’t ask you to do that very often, but if you haven’t done it yet, and I know there

[00:10:42] are thousands of you who have not, leaving a review in iTunes or in another platform,

[00:10:49] a podcast platform is incredibly helpful to help the show continue to reach new engineers

[00:10:55] who have never heard of us.

[00:10:57] That’s one great way to help out.

[00:10:59] If you’d like to take the conversation one step further, you can do that in two ways.

[00:11:03] One, you can just talk about it with another engineering friend of yours.

[00:11:07] They don’t really even have to be an engineer.

[00:11:09] Somebody that you think could benefit from the conversation, having that discussion is

[00:11:13] going to help you kind of embed this knowledge a little bit deeper and help you understand

[00:11:19] how you relate to it rather than just taking it wholesale and moving on.

[00:11:24] So I encourage you to have that conversation.

[00:11:26] Another way you can do that is to join the Developer Tea Discord community.

[00:11:30] Head over to developertea.com slash Discord to join totally free today.

[00:11:34] Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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