I wondered if there is a common sense of a "minimum age" or at least a certain period of time before a developer is thought of as a "senior".
Do you think, you can't be a senior developer before an age of 35? Or with less than 10y of professional experience on the market?
Yes, seniority depends on knowledge on the field.
Age has nothing to do with it. Time maybe, but not necessary.
I've never heard rules like you mentioned. :-)
It's a funny label anyway - Senior. To me it implies someone who has been around the block a bit and has quite a bit of good experience. It also implies the ability to lead teams and take charge of a project, but not necessarily be the Team Leader.
I don't think age should come into it, but a Senior Dev needs respect from the rest of the team...
in the UK it probably illigal too (age discrimation).
It's illegal in the US technically as well, but that doesn't really stop your manager's opinion of you from being swayed by your age, which is often not something you can stop. You really need to just make sure that your work is good enough that it overshadows your age.
And while I would be shocked to find someone hit senior level when they were only a year or two out of college, I would definitely say that much less than 10 years is possible. Technically even less than 5 if you are really good. I for example, went from software tester to Software Engineer I to Software Engineer II in just over 2 years from getting out of college. No, it's no senior level yet, but it's getting there, and fast. So senior before 35 is more than possible.
Software is one of those careers where all the normal rules are kind of thrown out... for example, having a degree doesn't even matter so much anymore. (15,000 of the 50,000 programmers that entered the market in 2006 didn't have a BS degree).
Your question is a little ambiguous. I suppose it depends who does the thinking. In the last few positions I have had held, I had the title senior but I have a) got less than 10 years experience and b) am under 35. I guess was given the title because I had more experience than other members of the team. In most teams though I have no doubt that some of the people younger with less experience would be just a qualified to have a senior tag.
First off, there should never be a minimum age to for a position, if there is then it is usually a quick route to a law suit for age discrimination.
That said, most of the postings I have seen for a senior developer in the United States usually require a minimum of a Bachelors degree in Computer Science or related field and anywhere from a minimum of 5 to 20 years of development experience. Generally it seems that "younger" companies (i.e. start-ups) have a lower years of experience requirement than other companies (i.e. IBM, Microsoft).
So the answer to your question really seems to depend upon what company you are talking about, but I wouldn't be surprised if someone working for a large company like IBM was still just considered to be a non-senior developer.
I doubt it has much to do with age. Linus Torvalds first released Linux when he was 23, and I bet by that time he was more knowledgeable in the OS area than most people with "senior developer" in their job title. He's not so exceptional, most good programmers probably wrote significant work before they turned 30.
As for professional experience, for people with solid backgrounds, 2-3 years of working with particular technology are sufficient.
Lastly, "on the market" is particularly irrelevant -- some people work in established companies for decades and don't get past the monkey-see-monkey-do stage, while others pick up great skills without ever working in a commercial environment (e.g. working on open source projects).
Development teams are typically meritocracies so titles like "senior" are usually just formal recognition that you are technically respected by your peers. Managers also just use title bumps as a way to justify an increase in your pay to a more competative rate.
So that being said, 10 years is way too long or just about right dependending on what kind of what kind of developer you are.
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of consulting companies who, despite having a staff full of people with 1-3 years of experience, have given the title "Senior Developer" or "Senior Consultant" to every single member of their development staff.
They do so in order to be able to tell the client that the project is in the hands of one of their "Senior" developers, when, in fact, they handed the project to the new hire who only has one project under their belt.
My first job didn't have jr/sr titles, but I was a III after 2 years. I moved from there to my current job, and came on as a Senior. That was almost 2 years ago. So, I was a Senior level developer at the ripe age of 23.
With good management, the title/pay will be based on ability/experience. With poor management, age could be a factor.
I believe that you need a minimum of 3 year to be consider a Senior.
I find the title senior to be highly overrated in the IT market. Focussing specifically on ZA there is very few people that have mastered their area of expertise and for me that is the driving line.
In the development companies and environments I have worked being senior steps outside of the boundaries of just coding, where the requirement is based on your knowledge of a particular technology or technology stack.
Senior developers should also have the ability to deal with clients directly, understand the needs of management and be able to act as team leads. It does sound like a huge amount to handle, however passionate individuals tend to build and hone these skills over time, with age and even number of years in industry being very small factors within these requirements.
However, the longer your in the industry and the older you are you do have a much better understanding of the role and title, and therefore it is an advantage if the individual is fairly established in his field or industry.
Seniority is relative to the company where you work, the market, the technology, etc.
For instance, at my very first job, I was considered Senior after only one year, because I was the most knowledgable on one of our product. I was Senior relative to the company and the particular product. Now, does that mean I wrote Senior programmer with one year of experience on my résumé back then? Of course not, because I was still a Junior to the eyes of the whole market.
A real Senior on the market on a regular career path should have minimum 5 years experience, unless he has a very successful and streamlined career path, which is very rare. If you have 2 years experience and boast seniority on your résumé you better have a very good explanation. You can however say that you master or are an expert of a particular technology, but this doesn't imply nor require seniority.
The company I work for ranks it below:
Ok, not really with Roman Numerals, I just think they look cool.
HR will put "5+ years of experience + B.S. Degree" when hiring for a Dev III, however I was able to move from a Dev I to a Dev III in just 18 months internally. So it all depends on your skillset.