A critical part of software engineering is talking about imaginary code.
I don’t mean writing code. And I don’t mean talking about how existing code works. Those are important, but they are far less important than communicating about code that doesn’t yet exist.
What sets senior engineers apart is their ability to collaborate on ideas. They can discuss an architecture decision, scaling strategy, or design pattern without needing concrete examples.
Senior engineers know about “factory methods,” “long-polling strategies,” “message queues,” and “write-through caching.” Talking in these abstract terms, different senior engineers with different backgrounds share a common language.
Working together, senior engineers can come to a solution with nothing more than words (and maybe a whiteboard diagram).
Learn the language to become a great collaborator on abstract ideas & you'll grow your developer career.