In your mind, what separates a junior developer from a developer, and similarly, a junior developer from an intern?

>a junior developer from an intern

a (decent) paycheck?

@commanderkeen an entirely valid point

How much Coffee they consume.

@irene interesting, thanks for the input

I like Irene's definition, but I would add that an intern is there specifically to be mentored, rather than they require more mentoring.

@Zaphod65 so you'd say if someone can get at least something done with minimal help, that's junior level?

@Crazed pretty much, yeah, I would expect a junior to be familiar with programming in general and able to self-teach a language, but they need help figuring out business-specific things, or maybe help finding bugs that are a little more obscure. A non-junior shouldn't need much help at all to get the vast majority of things done; you give them a task and you can leave them to get it done almost no matter what.

One was luckier than the other in the job search

@irene that's a complicated one. In my opinion, a senior is generally more able to be a mentor, seniors should also be more able to take the larger view of the product/application, to be able to do system architecture and design type things, as well as having the raw programming ability.