On Quora I've seen this question asked quite frequently: What is the difference between a junior developer and a senior developer? It is more than just years of experience. One of my co-workers was looking at a potential candidate for hire. He said that this person has 5 years of experience but he is still a junior. He repeated the beginner year of experience five times. This begs the question; what skills should a junior developer have? Whether you have completed a computer science bachelors degree, gone through a boot camp, or are self taught, these skills are essential for the basics:
Junior Developer
- Operating system basics
- Networking basics
- Digital device basics
- Programming basics
- Cloud computing basics
- Data structures and algorithms
- Object oriented programming
- Mobile device programming
- Database basics
- Infrastructure security
- Cybersecurity
- AI driven coding
- Debugging
- Database applications
Mid-Level Developer
- Language: C# or Java
- Backend Framework: .NET Core or Spring Boot
- ORM: Entity Framework or Hibernate
- Database Language: SQL
- Backend Unit Testing: NUnit or JUnit
- Backend Mocking: MOQ or Mockito
- API Testing: Postman or RestAssured
- Cloud Technologies: AWS or Azure
- File Formats: JSON, YAML, XML
- Technologies: GIT, JIRA, Azure DevOps
- Principles: SCRUM, Kanban, REST, Microservices, SOA, Estimation
- IDE: Visual Studio, Rider or IntelliJ IDEA
- Language: JavaScript and TypeScript
- Frameworks: VueJS, React, Angular, Blazor, or ASP.NET MVC
- HTML
- CSS
- CSS Frameworks: Less, SASS, Bootstrap, Tailwind
- Front End Unit Testing: Jasmine or Jest
- File Formats: JSON, YAML, XML
- Technologies: GIT, NPM, NODE, JIRA, Azure DevOps
- Principles: SCRUM, Kanban, REST, Microservices, SOA, Estimation
- IDE: VSCode
Senior Developer
- Design Patterns
- SOLID Design Principles
- Test Driven Development
- Multithreaded Development
- Memory and Performance Optimization
- Load Testing
- Continuous Integration
- SAFE
- DevOps
- GUI Testing: Playwright or Cypress
- Pipelines: Azure, AWS, Google Cloud and GitHub Actions
- N-Tier Architecture
- Onion Architecture
- Clean Architecture
- Hexagonal Architecture
- Serverless Architecture
- CQRS
- Microservices Architecture