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5 daily habits of senior engineers
I wish I’d known about these techniques earlier.
Deliver them consistently, and you’ll get noticed on your team. They’re the foundation of creating real value as a software developer.
Senior engineer routines
Top senior engineers are a strange bunch.
- Food YouTube is always on in the background when my colleague is coding.
- 14 windows, hundreds of tabs, and Run the Jewels blasting in the headphones. That’s the workflow of my former CTO.
- I know a senior developer who needs a clean desk, staring at a wall, with noise canceling headphones in order to focus.
Working as a senior engineer can take all kinds of forms. They all look different and match the personality of the developer.
I don’t think you should listen to Run the Jewels, stare at a blank wall, or watch YouTube in the background in order to be a great developer.
But all of these senior engineers do have a few things in common…
1. Notetaking
All of the top engineers I know have some system for notetaking.
I’ve seen them use fancy tools like Notion. I’ve also seen simple text files. Doesn’t matter. Great engineers take notes.