My Notes on the Pursuit of Maturity as a Software Engineer.

As I grow in my career, I look more and more for ways to learn from experienced engineers and from their journeys. One way is by asking people in my circle for advice and perspective. For those I do not know personally, I rely on what they share online, books, or conferences.

While I look for content focused on experience, philosophy, and the nontechnical side of engineering, I have found that writing about engineering maturity is harder to find than technical tutorials.

What is maturity, and how do we define it in engineering? Is it simply being a senior engineer with a lot of system knowledge, or does it require something else?

To be honest with you, I don’t know the full set of requirements for being a “mature engineer”. But I’d recognize certain traits when I see them. This set of traits I look for in my teammates, and in candidates I interview.

Admit what you don’t know

One of the clearest signs of maturity is the ability to admit when you do not know something, or when you need to research and learn more. In my experience, this quality is a strong signal of maturity. Being a senior engineer does not mean you know everything in your field. Admitting what you do not know does not diminish you, it often earns trust. For me, this is one of the most important traits I look for in someone I want to work with.

Seek Constructive critique early

One trait I try to develop in myself, and that I see in many great software engineers I respect, is actively seeking constructive criticism. When I design a system, I share it with peers, provide context and background, and encourage them to challenge it and poke holes in it.

This is not because I do not trust my abilities. It is because good systems are hard to build from a single perspective. Even with experience, I am still vulnerable to bias, and that bias can show up in my designs. Constructive peer reviews often improve the design and lead to better decisions.

Also, if you are proposing something, make sure to study it well and have an argument you can passionately argue for it. Being passionate, prepared, and genuinely interested is an admirable quality!

Be a Multiplier for others

Multipliers elevate their colleagues. Do you help less experienced engineers learn and grow? Do you make the people around you better? This goes beyond being good at your craft. It elevates the team and increases its impact across the organization.

Respond well to mistakes

I believe that making mistakes is part of being alive. Learning how to deal with mistakes is part of growing up and maturing. In software engineering, mistakes happen. We try to catch them before they reach production, but some will still slip through.

I have made my fair share of mistakes throughout my career. When I reflect on how I handled them early on versus how I handle them now, the contrast is stark.

Back then, I tended to panic, and sometimes I would simply stop thinking straight. I focused on managing the blame (which I often just imagined) rather than the issue at hand. As I have grown, I’ve learned to replace that fear with structure. Now, I prioritize mitigating the damage and fixing the problem first, then calmly investigating the cause later. This shift from ‘fear of blame’ to ‘focus on solution’ has been a major part of my growth.

Mature engineers handle these moments effectively. They stay calm, focus on fixing the issue, learn from it, and help the team move forward. Later, when it is safe, they can even laugh about it and move on without blame.

Understand the importance of context

This is something I touched a bit in my previous blog. Context is the key component when proposing a solution, rather than blindly throwing out one-liner rules or principles. Knowing lots of terminology, principles, design patterns is great, but learning that “best practices” are not always best. You need to learn about the context of the situation and take it into consideration when you decide or propose something is such an essential part.

Some of the hardest decisions are the compromises based on the current reality of your team, organization, project, and timeline.

Have a business awareness

Understanding the code and the system architecture is very important and crucial for the engineering team. However, adding business awareness takes you to another level. Asking “why are we building this product?”, “who are our customers?” and “what does the customer need most?” brings more understanding from the product side which increases your effectiveness and helps bridge between the deep technical understanding and the product understanding.

Read the room and communicate for your audience

Earlier in my career, when I was a junior engineer, I used to go deep into technical details with people who were not interested in them. Then I would complain that they did not understand the background, and I would naively wonder why they were not interested in those details. That version of me was missing the point.

Another crucial part is understanding that higher-level managers are rarely interested in specific technical details. They are interested in the product’s development state, how it affects the timeline, and how we are mitigating risks.

Having the self awareness when it comes to communication takes your presence and room reading into another level. Being intentional about how you deliver opinions and criticism, learning how to present to each group, what they are interested in and what parts that they aren’t, makes you able to reach to multiple audience.

Adapt calmly to change

Personally, I’m not a big fan of lots of changes happening, I love to have systems around me. I usually sleep at the same time no matter it’s a work day coming or a holiday. I wake up at the same time. have a similar routine in the morning, buy the same shoes or similar if I couldn’t find them. You get the idea.

Ironically, I spent most of my career working at startups and mid-sized companies which have a higher frequency of change happening than the big tech companies (at least in general). As a result, I started to learn how to adapt to that and learn how to build my systems around it. The changing nature of requirements and focus in startups, and the need to deliver fast and iterate, makes learning how to adapt with that is absolutely necessary!

I still have some stuff to adjust and figure out in that regard. The uncertainty of change is not comfortable by nature. The main goal is not to make it look and feel better, the main goal is to learn how to react calmly and correctly when it happens. Life is built on change, it’s unavoidable.

Conclusion

These traits are not developed in a day or two; they are the result of scars, mistakes, and lessons learned over years.

True maturity isn’t about having all the answers or building the perfect system on the first try. It is about having the resilience to handle the moments when you don’t know the answer, the humility to ask for help, and the wisdom to prioritize the team’s success over your own ego. It’s not a destination you reach, but a mindset you choose every day.

I don’t know the full set of requirements for being a ‘mature engineer,’ but these are the traits that have signaled growth in my own journey. It is a mix of technical context, business empathy, and emotional intelligence.

As I continue to learn, I am sure this list will grow. I’d love to hear from you. What is the one non-technical trait you value most in a senior engineer? How do you define maturity in our field?

Further readings

• https://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engineer/

• https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-ten-commandments-of-egoless-programming/