Hey hey hey,

Another Top 3 in Tech email heading your way with the newest news from the web development world. Let's get right into it:

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1. From Junior to Senior

There's no official definition for what marks a "junior" or "senior" developer.

Titles are notoriously hard to quantify, as each company usually has their own system that doesn't necessarily translate to years of experience or how other companies measure seniority.

With that said, there's always points that specifically apply to more senior developers. And for me personally, going from mid-level to senior was a great journey that helped me focus on what really matters to take your career to the next level.

So when I came across this article recently, I figured it could also be a great starting point for others looking to advance their software development career:

​Read the Junior to Senior: An action plan for engineering career success here​

I recommend reading the article in full, but here's some of the highlights for brevity, with my thoughts added on top:

1. Hone your technical skills. Naturally senior developers need to be great at coding and solving problems - and in general just have a solid technical foundation within programming and software development.
2. Understand the business. As you progress in your career, it becomes vital that you also understand the economic impact and financial tradeoffs of your company. You're no longer "just coding" on your own, but have a feel for how decisions impact the business and your coworkers.
3. Take ownership of your projects. One of the most important traits of a senior developer is how they approach projects. It's important to take ownership and help to build the best possible product - no finger pointing or blaming others if something goes wrong.
4. Continuous learning. Even as you level up to senior, that doesn't mean you're done learning. Coding is constantly evolving, so it's crucial that you stay up to date and improve your skills in the long run.

I personally think these 4 points are what really separate great senior developers from their junior or mid-level peers. But like I mentioned, what really makes a senior is also quite subjective and can change a lot from field to field or company to company.

I also believe that building towards a senior title should be something you actively work on. And for that, the above are some great starting points for your journey ✌️

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2. Vercel Ship

Speaking of continuous learning, there's been lots of great announcements in the front-end world recently. Last time we talked about some of Vercel's new features for data storage, but they kept up the pace with new features all throughout their "Vercel Ship" week.

So besides new storage options, Vercel also released:

1. Vercel Secure Compute, for companies to connect internal tools with the outside world without sacrificing developer experience or security
2. Visual editing, allowing content editors to visually edit websites without even having to open the CMS
3. NextJS 13.4, marking the first stable release of the App router using the new React Server Components paradigm
4. Ecosystem updates, with better support for surrounding tools like hosting NuxtJS on Vercel and integrating the Clerk authentication platform with your NextJS app

Overall some amazing releases from the Vercel team - and, as always, elegantly presented with Keynotes, high-production videos and a great landing page:

​Check out the full Vercel Ship week here​

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3. Qwik v1.0 release

Finally, NextJS hasn't been the only front-end tool getting ​some love recently. Qwik, a (relatively) new front-end framework has officially reached version 1.0, marking it ready for production.

I know what you're thinking: "oh no, yet another front-end framework to learn?". And I feel you. I haven't personally dove that deep into Qwik yet, but it definitely looks like a breath of fresh air in the front-end framework world.

It builds on similar fundamentals that you're used to from React and Vue, but also makes some radically different (but ultimately super interesting) decisions to stand out of the crowd and make it easier for developers to build excellent and performant applications. And isn't that what we're all about?

So if you're curious, definitely check out Qwik below. And if not, don't worry - you can continue learning React and be just fine!

​Read the full Qwik v1 release blog post here​

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​That's all for now! See you in 2 weeks ✌️

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— Mads Brodt