Why Finding a Skilled Coding Colleague Is Harder Than Getting a Raise After 17 Years

After 17 years as a programmer, the author realizes that meeting a truly skilled colleague is a rare stroke of luck—often taking five to eight years to happen. The article argues that even a single senior engineer can transform a team’s environment.

"They stay because there is a senior expert in the team."

The first benefit discussed is the senior’s work habits. When a requirement arrives, the senior thinks about future scalability and system architecture before writing any code, insisting on the mantra “think before you act.” This leads to structured, extensible, and maintainable code that rarely needs rework; the author notes three years of deliveries without any redo.

Designed, modular code that is hard for others to break.

The senior also emphasizes stability: once code is delivered, it should run reliably, and any changes should involve only minimal additions.

The second benefit is the senior’s approach to implementing requirements. The author cites an example where the senior uses a factory class to create a complex object, adding a comment that the factory encapsulates the construction process, provides a simple of method, and supports reuse. In contrast, a less disciplined programmer might write a large, monolithic method with tangled service calls.

"Do not redesign lightly; professionalism requires careful design."

The senior’s code is consistently concise, with each method having a clear responsibility, making the code "pleasant to read." Moreover, the code is rich in non‑functional concerns—extensive exception handling, fallback mechanisms, and alerting—demonstrating meticulous attention to edge cases.

"A senior programmer’s code is filled with handling for exceptional scenarios."

By working closely with such a professional, the author’s own habits improved over time, moving closer to becoming a professional programmer. The lesson extends beyond programmers: anyone can benefit by adopting the senior’s mindset, habits, and methodological rigor.

"The benefit lasts a lifetime."