Why the fuck do people care about age so much?
Unlike other activities, you can be 15 years old and be as good as a senior dev, so why the fuck do you need to degrade me because you found out my age?
I still deliver the promised work, so what the fuck?

As for kids who try to get recognition because they're young and program, well, fuck you too!

Programming isn't about age or maturity, since in this age of tech, anyone can pick up a computer and an internet connection and learn, so why do you feel that younger individuals have less capabilities?

I just had to get that out of me since it pisses me off a fuck load.

Experience

There is a difference between 5 years of "I code for fun" and 5 years of full-time work as a dev

@J-2FA I shaved during the last day of November so it's gone now ahahahaha

@GarreauArthur that's one point, but if you're already in a company, and the others talk to you like you're mentally challenged because you're younger, then of course that's going to piss one off

@RAZERZ You're 15 and you work in a company?

Too many use of the f* word I guess

@RAZERZ How can somebody so young be as good as a senior? In my mind a senior is someone who has coded as a hobby or studied for a few years, then worked professionally for 5 years. Have you been coding 8 hours a day since you were 6? Have you deployed software that was used by other people and dealt with all the problems that show up afterwards? If somebody comes to you in your company and asks for help with their code, can you help them? If shit goes down can you take responsibility?

@jsframework9000 I am not saying that I am a senior, I am just saying that I really hate how people degrade young ones for their code. In example, a young kid makes an application, then is doubted for the code since the individual is a kid...

I don't know if it ever stops. I'm 30 now and for some meetings I just take a 50 year old colleague so they will listen better.

In the end I will still be the ons that does all the work and make all the choices. But somehow they feel better when someone that looks senior is around.

I still don't know why but my clients feelings always seem to be more important then the quality of the work deliverd.

@Nitroretro OOF the genious kid has no SSL

Just act mature about it

I frequently wonder about what's the overall difference between a senior engineer and a junior.

When it comes to writing the actual code, there isn't necessarily a great difference. While not all code is the same, the difference in output between a great junior developer and a seasoned good developer is probably marginal.

The bigger difference is in soft skills, and higher level approach. What tools will be used? Why? What requirements are bullshit and you should push back on? How do you keep system complexity at a reasonable level? How do you break down a complex problem into smaller independent problems? How is shit going to scale from a computational and developer perspective. Are you going to own the problem, and not just "your code"? How do you guarantee success, and what are your success metrics?

For most senior developers coding is 30% of the job.

And one more thing. No age does not really matter after some point. I work with people who are younger than me and who have reached higher positions before me, because I focused on technology too much and less on managing people.

But a lot of the seniority is obtained purely from experience. There are no short cuts. You need to have suffered burns from picking the wrong technology, implementing code poorly, having the wrong approach, etc. The greatest lessons are learnt from the greatest pains.

Other lessons are gained from people who are smarter than you. So, if you think you know everything and everyone else is stupid, then there are one of two possibilities:

1. You are right and you should move on to a place where you can learn.
2. You are wrong, there are people who are smarter than you but you are not willing to listen because of Dunning Kruger effect.

Make sure you don't fall into #2. If you do, your learning will take a while to course correct.

@nickhh I totally agree there, but if you spent a couple of weeks making the platform which your client wanted, and can't trust your work because "the cunt's a teenager" how would that make you feel? That isn't very motivational for the teenager is it?

@ribchinski well, maybe you are doing that :o

@RAZERZ It all depends on how much the client paid. If I paid 10000 euro for a simple app, I would feel insulted if I found out it was made by a teenager (because as a client I can't look at the source code to validate the quality of the code). If I paid 500 euro I would be more than happy that a teenager made it because an adult would never work that cheap.

I don't want to defend any misguided soul who underestimates younger devs, but I do understand the distinction in expectations. Knowing a language and some tools might make you a good programmer, but there's a lot more to being a software developer than programming. It's asking the right questions, suggesting the right approaches (yes, there's always multiple), finding balance between cleanliness and time-efficiency, positive and efficient communication (which includes knowing many IT terms), and many other things you could consider "soft skills". Most of them you can't learn from books and some not even through University.