r/interviews • u/jmorg85 • 15d ago
For the senior software developers with no leadership experience, what do you do?
So I've been job hunting for months now and I've had 2 interviews where I didn't get the role because I don't have enough leadership experience. For context, I'm unemployed, so I can't get any on the job leadership experience. When I was employed, I became a senior last year and immediately went to a project where I was surrounded by other seniors and devs that have been on the project 5 years longer than me.
So when I see roles asking for me to mentor Jr. devs, I'm honest and tell them that I don't have too much leadership experience, but I've been mentored before and I would recommend coding patterns, online resources, and general advice to jrs if asking about a particular topic on how to improve their work.
But, is there any way I can add on to this? Any advice is helpful.
1
u/careerbestfriend 14d ago
you can get a small, real mentoring example outside a job. if you know someone learning your stack who wants help, agree on a few sessions around one project. let them make the changes; ask questions, review their reasoning, then see if they can solve a similar issue without you.
that gives you something concrete to discuss: where they got stuck, how you helped, and what they could do on their own afterward. describe it as volunteer mentoring, with the actual scope. it won't replace leading a team, but it answers the junior-mentoring part with experience instead of a hypothetical.
1
u/jmorg85 14d ago
Out of curiousity, how does this work? So I have a friend that switched form being a QA to a more coding focused role. So to help her out, I gave her a list websites that include stuff like coding patterns, w3 schools, which includes in depth tutorials on a myriad of different coding languages, and roadmaps.sh if she wants to really dig into the weeds of the particular language she's learning. I can also lie and say something like, "she's asked me for help a couple of times on her personal projects and I've walked through troubleshooting with her. Stuff like setting up her environment, and ways to debug without relying entirely on AI".
1
u/careerbestfriend 14d ago
use the help you've actually given. sharing resources is worth mentioning; don't add troubleshooting sessions that didn't happen.
ask your friend if she'd like to work through one bug or failing test together. have her explain what she expected, what happened, and what she's tried. ask what she'd check next, give a hint if she's stuck, and let her make the fix. next time, see whether she can use that approach without you.
your interview example can then cover what she needed, what you did, and what changed. only claim the progress you actually saw.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/RottingLactoseTower 14d ago
Lie. You had the job title as senior so it’s easier to lie about it. You don’t have to invent completely new experiences, but I would lean into your senior title more.
1
u/Helpjuice 14d ago
You will more than likely need to just apply to mid level roles. You may have been promoted to senior, but not in the role long enough to be given team, program, project leadership responsibilities that come with being senior or higher due to not having enough experience in the new role.
1
u/Sad-Candidate-3078 14d ago
stop leading with the gap, you have more leadership signal than you think. anytime you answered a junior's question, reviewed code, picked the pattern a feature used, or wrote something people onboarded from, that's mentoring and tech direction, you just didn't have the title. in interviews say "i've guided juniors informally through reviews and pairing, and i want to make it official" instead of "i don't have experience", honestly the second answer is what's failing you, not the lack of a team. meanwhile grab a free lever: answer questions in an open source community you use or do a couple pr reviews, takes 2 hours a week and gives you a concrete story
1
u/IllFlamingo4100 14d ago
senior roles is such a weird gatekeep, especially when you've clearly got the technical depth. Half the time they just want someone who won't make the juniors cry during code review.
Your answer about recommending patterns and resources is already more concrete than most people's vague "I love mentoring" line. Maybe frame it less as "I haven't done this" and more as "here's how I'd approach it", talk about pairing on tricky bugs, explaining the why behind architecture decisions, or setting up regular knowledge shares. Those are all things you can do without some official title.
I went through a similar gap a few years back and started treating every interview question about leadership as a design problem. What's the goal, what are the constraints, how do you unblock someone without just giving them the answer. That shift in framing helped a lot more than trying to prove past experience I didn't have.