Become a Senior Engineer

Become a Senior Engineer is a Substack focused on guiding software engineers through the transition into senior roles. It covers practical advice on career development, technical skills, and workplace habits essential for senior positions. The newsletter combines personal experiences, technical tutorials, and industry insights to support engineers' growth.

Career Development Technical Skills Enhancement Workplace Habits and Culture Software Engineering Best Practices Communication and Teamwork Project Management Security Awareness Productivity Tools and Techniques

The hottest Substack posts of Become a Senior Engineer

And their main takeaways

🎓 How a Senior engineer effectively onboards at a new job.

19 implied HN points • 28 Mar 24
💼 Business Onboarding Relationships Goals Ownership Feedback
  1. Focus on learning about the organization and its dynamics during the initial weeks instead of showcasing your skills right away.
  2. Build strong relationships early on by meeting teammates, getting into details, asking questions, and offering help to increase your influence.
  3. Set clear goals with your manager for the first 90 days to balance networking, learning, and making tangible contributions.

A Snowy Last-Minute Friday Edition

39 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Development Career Reflection Community Tools
  1. Fridays are a great time for reflection on your job and career, allowing you to assess your emotions, learning, interactions with teammates, and successes and failures.
  2. Leaving everything better than you found it is an important concept that involves sharing failures, thus contributing to improvement within your team and network.
  3. Persistent effort and engagement can lead to growth, even starting with small numbers in a new venture, by focusing on community engagement and setting achievable goals.

My Introduction

19 implied HN points • 09 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Software Development Freelancing E-commerce
  1. The author's journey in software development started with self-teaching, from HTML to dynamic elements with JavaScript and PHP. Dreamweaver was a helpful tool for learning.
  2. After a period of exploring different jobs, the author's career accelerated when they focused on e-commerce, leading to full-time software engineering roles.
  3. The author achieved a six-figure salary milestone in a SaaS company after overcoming self-doubt. They highlight the importance of continuous learning and self-improvement, even after facing setbacks like getting fired.

🎓 What `MVP` actually means; Horizontal vs. Vertical scaling

0 implied HN points • 21 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Scaling Engineering Infrastructure Prototyping
  1. An MVP is about focusing on value, not just products. It's delivering the earliest testable product to get feedback early and iterate quickly.
  2. For scaling, vertical scaling increases power of a single server, while horizontal scaling adds more servers for flexibility. Each has its pros and cons to consider.
  3. When choosing between vertical and horizontal scaling, think about expected growth, architectural needs, maintenance, team capabilities, and cost to make the best decision for your project.
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🎓 Get more productivity, fewer distractions from Slack; Reduce tech debt by automating dependency updates

0 implied HN points • 07 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Productivity Communication Automation Dependencies Software
  1. Improve communication on Slack by using channels, threads, private channels, and useful integrations to keep discussions organized and effective.
  2. Minimize distractions on Slack by adjusting notifications, turning on Do Not Disturb mode, and unsubscribing from noisy threads to focus on your work.
  3. Automating dependency updates can save time, reduce security risks, and improve efficiency for engineers by automating the process of tracking and updating project dependencies.

🎓 Work on projects you aspire towards; Design Pattern of the Day: Adapter

0 implied HN points • 29 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Programming Development Software Design Tech news Career development
  1. Focus on working on projects that inspire you and are beyond your current skill set to grow faster and gain more experience.
  2. The Adapter design pattern in programming acts as a bridge between incompatible interfaces, allowing for cleaner code, quicker development, and flexibility.
  3. To excel in software development, we should strive to work on challenging tasks, be open to learning from others, and not fear pushing beyond our comfort zones.

A Story of Failure; BASE Tech: Full Text Search Engines

0 implied HN points • 14 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Engineering Search Engines Software Data Analysis Development
  1. Mistakes happen in engineering, and it's important to have a positive culture that supports learning from failures without blame.
  2. Implementing a full-text search engine in your app can greatly enhance the search experience for users by offering advanced features like relevance ranking and language analysis.
  3. When adding a full-text search feature, make sure to gather requirements, choose the right engine, build a robust implementation plan, and continuously test and optimize for performance and user feedback.

Preparing for layoffs; The OWASP Top 10; Is it a console, terminal, or...?

0 implied HN points • 24 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Cybersecurity Tech Tools
  1. Save up an emergency fund as a safety net in case of a layoff. Having financial security can ease the stress of job uncertainty.
  2. Familiarize yourself with the OWASP Top 10 to understand critical security risks in web applications. Being aware of security standards is crucial for modern software development.
  3. Distinguish between a 'console,' 'terminal,' and other tech terms to enhance your understanding in the technology field. It's an intriguing topic for tech enthusiasts.

Become a Senior Engineer #3: 15+ Code Editor Superpowers

0 implied HN points • 02 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Software Development Tools Productivity Coding
  1. Senior engineers focus on efficiency and quality, constantly optimizing workflows to increase speed and reduce errors.
  2. Modern code editors offer valuable tools like syntax highlighting, code analysis, and keyboard shortcuts to enhance your development experience.
  3. IDEs provide powerful features such as refactoring, code completion, debugging, and integration with tools like Git, databases, and CI/CD platforms.

Join our new subscriber chat!

0 implied HN points • 28 Dec 23
🕹 Technology News App Communication Community
  1. Join the subscriber chat on the Substack app to engage in exclusive conversations with the author and other subscribers.
  2. Download the Substack app on iOS or Android to access the chat feature and receive push notifications for real-time discussions.
  3. Once in the app, tap the chat icon and start interacting with the community - it's a great way to stay connected and be part of ongoing conversations.

#2: Should you be in this meeting?

0 implied HN points • 27 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Meetings Productivity Communication Leadership Software Development
  1. Meetings can be time-consuming, impacting an engineer's core work. Attend only the valuable ones to maximize time and productivity.
  2. Make sure your presence in a meeting is worthwhile by aiming to learn something, teach something, or make a decision.
  3. It's okay to decline a meeting if it doesn't align with your priorities or if you don't see its value. Don't attend out of obligation.

Become a Senior Engineer #1: A Senior's Christmas Holiday

0 implied HN points • 22 Dec 23
🕹 Technology Software Engineering Remote work Professional development Work-life balance
  1. Software engineers usually enjoy a peaceful holiday time at work, including the week between Christmas and New Year when many companies reduce or cease operations.
  2. If you have to work during the holidays, use the slower time to tackle wishlist items, learn new things, and enjoy fewer meetings and interruptions.
  3. Before taking time off, finish pending tasks, communicate progress to coworkers, delegate necessary processes, and ensure your work is safe and documented for a smooth return.

#4: Read ALL The Documentation

0 implied HN points • 04 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Documentation Software Engineering
  1. Technical documentation is vital for learning and improving coding skills.
  2. Seniors focus on relevant sections like release notes, best practices, and architectural concepts.
  3. Reading documentation is a key part of being a senior engineer, helping with problem-solving, learning, and supporting team members.

🎓 Making (reasonably) good decisions quickly; Using a third Entity instead of a Join Table

0 implied HN points • 14 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Decision-making Database Management APIs Programming
  1. Making decisions quickly is crucial for unblocking progress and enabling action, learning, and iteration.
  2. When dealing with complex decisions, prioritize understanding the problem, collaborating with your team, and utilizing prototyping for informed choices.
  3. Using a third entity instead of a join table in relational databases can better reflect domain logic and avoid compatibility issues with frameworks.

A Newsletter & Content Shift

0 implied HN points • 23 Jan 24
💼 Business Entrepreneurship Newsletter Content creation Blogging
  1. Starting a newsletter is a journey and a learning experience. Each issue helps in understanding the process and your role as a writer.
  2. There is a shift to make 98% of the content free. The paid tier will focus on supporting the creator without exclusive content for now.
  3. The newsletter will have a more casual tone, focus on sharing knowledge for seniors, and there will be a new blog for formal content with code-heavy topics.