If you want your development team to be efficient and productive, it’ll need to be well-balanced — in other words, people with specific skillsets should be performing the functions to which they can bring the most value.
To ensure that, you need to hire the right people for each position — and that’s not always easy. Sometimes, different technical and management roles in your company don’t have stark, obvious differences.
For instance, how do you decide when it comes to hiring a senior developer vs a lead developer? Which one — or both — do you need? You’ll find that the differences between the two are quite nuanced; however, both roles bring unique value to their teams.
With that in mind, we’ll explore the job of a lead developer vs senior developer in detail and explain their differences and similarities.
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TL;DR: Senior Developer vs Lead Developer
If you want the short version of our comparison of lead software developers and senior software developers — their main similarity is their level of technical proficiency, and their main difference is their level of responsibilities.
A senior software developer knows the technologies (and specific projects) they’re working on in-depth; they possess a level of knowledge sufficient to help junior developers with most issues. However, while they’re crucial for the successful implementation of a software product, they usually don’t have a hand in its design.
On the other hand, a lead developer generally has more industry experience than a senior developer. However, while their coding proficiency is similar, lead developers (as their name suggests) also have a managerial role, usually working as team leaders or project managers. Also, they play a part in the design of the product, not just the implementation.
Main Differences
One of the main differences between senior software engineers and lead software engineers is the time they spend actually coding. Roughly speaking, senior developers spend between 80% and 100% of their work time on practical coding tasks. In comparison, lead developers spend a little over half of their time on coding and the rest on their various other responsibilities.
They work on the design of the company’s software solutions, find ways to increase the efficiency of their team’s development process, manage other developers, maintain code standards, etc.
This brings us to another important difference: typically, senior developers are only responsible for their own work. On the other hand, lead developers are held accountable for the productivity of their development team — which means analyzing the current development process in a constant effort to improve productivity.
And once lead developers find bottlenecks and issues in the development process, it’s their responsibility to devise strategies to address them. Of course, senior developers may still offer solutions for improving the development process or specific design issues — but they do so on their own initiative, and they’re not required to.
Compared to the job role of a development manager, the position of a lead developer isn’t a 100% managerial role. However, seeing as they’re responsible for the productivity of their teams, lead developers have a substantial level of managerial responsibility in practice.
Also, compared to senior developers, lead developers work with the non-development aspects of their software product’s life cycle much more. They create high-level estimates that project managers and other higher-ups use to draft release deadlines — and they often communicate with clients, business analysts, and other managers.
To surmise, their main differences are:
- Time spent coding;
- Level of responsibility for others;
- Level of responsibility for other aspects of the project;
- Frequency of communication with non-technical personnel.
Read More: When Can You Stop Calling Yourself a “Junior” Software Developer?
Main Similarities
For starters, senior software developers and lead software developers have a similar level of technical proficiency and knowledge. We’ve mentioned this already, but it’s important to point out that these two job roles aren’t that different in their technical aptitude — their main differences are in their responsibilities.
That being said, both senior and lead developers frequently perform code reviews to ensure high code quality; though, the code reviews done by lead developers are more focused on code review standards subsequently followed by senior developers.
Also, lead developers inspect senior developers’ code reviews to make sure they were done properly — and they instruct other developers and train them to perform correct code reviews.
However, there are other practices that require the attention of both senior and lead developers — such as continuous deployment and continuous integration. Though, senior developers will spend more time on actual application development, while lead devs will dedicate more attention to DevOps practices.
Also, senior and lead developers both mentor and train their junior counterparts — but that’s the extent of the managerial responsibilities of a senior developer. And while we’ve already said that lead developers do it more — in the modern agile development methodology, all developers communicate with non-tech employees from time to time.
So, their main similarities are:
- Level of technical aptitude
- Code review tasks
- Training and mentorship tasks
Read More: Software Developer vs Engineer vs Programmer vs Coder
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What is a Senior Developer?
Senior software developers are experienced professionals in the field of software technology. They’re programming experts and mentors to less experienced devs, who often turn to them with coding questions and other project issues.
Primary Role & Responsibilities
The precise responsibilities and tasks carried out by senior developers can vary depending on their specific projects and employers. However, they generally handle:
- Writing code via project-specific programming languages;
- Mentoring their junior counterparts;
- Implementing functionality requests;
- Creating reports for senior executives and lead developers;
- Troubleshooting bugs and errors.
How They Fit in a Typical Engineering Team
The primary difference between a junior and a senior developer is their years of experience — which is why the “Senior Developer” title is generally reserved for developers with at least five years of coding experience or less specific experience on a project.
Career Path
In most cases, successful senior programmers start going over to the business side of their companies — eventually becoming lead developers and higher-level managers.
However, senior developers who like staying on the technical side of things advance into roles such as:
- Software Architect — making technical decisions about tools, platforms, and coding standards used by their company and staying up-to-date with industry advancements.
- CTO — the Chief Technical Officer is a part of the c-suite, which means they’re also responsible for business decisions.
- Senior Project Manager — also referred to as Technical Project Manager, this role means leading and supervising project managers and helping them with the technical aspects of their projects.
Important Skills to Look for in a Senior Developer
Here are some of the skills necessary for a senior developer in any tech stack:
- Writing easy-to-maintain and readable code
- Proper prioritization of tasks
- Knowing how and when to help junior developers
- Consistency
Read More: 10+ Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions to Ask Your Candidates
What is a Lead Developer?
A lead developer is a tech professional who manages projects and guides software development teams. Apart from managerial skills, they also need in-depth industry knowledge and coding proficiency. Even though they’re experts on technical and practical parts of a project, they generally handle the management side of a tech project.
Primary Role & Responsibilities
The responsibilities of a lead developer include:
- Ensuring team productivity and adherence to quality standards;
- Configuring and building applications;
- Communicating client requests to other developers;
- Ensuring projects are completed on schedule;
- Educating and mentoring junior developers;
- Various other business activities like marketing, client communications, sales, outreach, etc.
How They Fit in a Typical Engineering Team
Within the agile methodology, lead developers often collaborate and communicate with the Scrum master. Generally, lead software engineers mentor and provide technical direction to their team of software engineers. There are various names for this position, including lead programmer, technical lead, development lead, etc.
The specific leadership duties and technical responsibilities of a lead software engineer depend on the hierarchy of their organization.
Career Path
Lead developers are generally mid-level managers — but they can advance into senior management and start overseeing mid-level managers themselves while obtaining some control over the corporate direction and strategy of their company.
These senior-level management titles include:
- CTO — Chief Technology Officer (described above)
- Vice President of Engineering — the main executive who manages all the company’s development teams, ensuring the fulfillment of design requirements, user experience consistency, and various other technical aspects on a company-wide level.
- CEO — Chief Executive Officer, the head executive in the entire company who is responsible for all the highest-level decisions, reporting only to the Board of Directors.
Important Skills to Look for in a Lead Developer
A lead developer must possess all the skills a senior developer has — but with an added understanding and interest in the business side of the company and the wider industry, instead of a focus on the technical parts of the project that a senior developer might have.
Read More: How to Hire a Technical Recruiter to Source Great Developer Candidates
Conclusion
While their roles may seem similar, there’s no right answer when it comes to senior developer vs. lead developer — your project and company will likely need both.
It’s only the question of which openings you currently have on your roster.
If you’re looking to hire experienced software engineers, whether seniors, leads, or otherwise, look no further!
You can also try Arc, your shortcut to the world’s best remote talent:
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