How To Become A Senior Technical Developer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a senior technical developer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Aaron Napierala,

Kevin Treu Ph.D.

Senior technical developers serve as experienced designers and problem-solvers, usually in the software, engineering, and manufacturing industries. Whatever their specific field, their general duty is to lead the development and improvement of their company's products.

Since senior technical developers are employed by a wide range of businesses, so you could find yourself doing all types of development work in this role. This can include drawing plans for home appliances, coding computer programs, or even designing rocket ships.

By the time you've attained the position of senior technical developer, it's likely that you'll have gained some sort of specialization. Your job will usually consist of putting your veteran knowledge to use in a leadership capacity as you guide teams of developers in creating consumer-targeted products.

In general, companies strongly prefer senior technical developer applicants who hold bachelor's or master's degrees in a relevant field such as engineering, computer science, or information technology. Three or more years' experience as a junior technical developer is usually also a requirement.

Your hard work and expertise will pay off, though. As a senior technical developer, you can earn an average salary of around $107,000 per year!

What general advice would you give to a senior technical developer?

Aaron Napierala

Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Defiance College

The most important advice I can offer, is to let them know to work toward something they are passionate about. Many people have the impression that CS is all about programming. While programming can, and does, deal with programming, an education in CS lays the foundation for students to work with technology, whatever that might be. If students are not passionate about what they are doing, I believe students would be hard-pressed to achieve their true potential. If you have a solid foundation, but nothing to build on top of that, where are you? This is why I always recommend students explore other areas, outside of CS, that they are excited to learn more about, to complement their technical knowledge. If students can't relate to people outside of their discipline, I think they will be limited on what they can do and ultimately not satisfied.

ScoreSenior Technical DeveloperUS Average

Salary

7.9

Avg. Salary $112,642

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

4.0

Growth rate 21%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.17%

Asian 29.79%

Black or African American 4.60%

Hispanic or Latino 8.36%

Unknown 4.85%

White 52.23%

Gender

female 22.03%

male 77.97%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

4.0

Stress level is moderate

7.1 - high

Complexity level

7.9

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

6.6

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a senior technical developer

Explore senior technical developer education requirements

Most common senior technical developer degrees

Bachelor's

62.4 %

Master's

17.2 %

Associate

15.0 %

Start to develop specific senior technical developer skills

Skills	Percentages
Java	12.06%
Emerging Technologies	7.58%
JavaScript	7.24%
Apex	4.67%
C++	4.43%

Complete relevant senior technical developer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior technical developers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior technical developer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior technical developer resumes.

Research senior technical developer duties and responsibilities

Configure and manage JGroup multicasting communication for apache tomcat web servers.
Develop the UI for the claim modules.
Design, develop complex SQL queries for PL/SQL API.
Transition dated HTML to validate W3C XHTML transitional/strict code.

Get senior technical developer experience

Generally, it takes 2-4 years to become a senior technical developer. The most common roles before becoming a senior technical developer include senior software engineer, developer team lead and software engineer.

Prepare your senior technical developer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior technical developer resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a senior technical developer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable senior technical developer resume templates

Build a professional senior technical developer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior technical developer resume.