Secrets of Senior Developers: Writing Clean, Maintainable Code

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Becoming a senior developer isn’t just about writing code that works — it’s about writing code that is clean, maintainable, and easy to understand. While junior developers focus on getting things to work, senior developers think about scalability, readability, and long-term maintainability.

So, what’s their secret? Let’s dive into the best practices and principles that experienced developers follow to write high-quality code.

1. Follow the KISS Principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

Senior developers avoid unnecessary complexity. If a feature can be implemented in 10 lines instead of 50, they go for the simpler approach.

❌ Bad Example (Unnecessarily Complex Code)

def calculate_discount(price, discount):
    if discount == 0:
        return price
    else:
        return price - (price * (discount / 100))

✅ Clean & Simple Version

def calculate_discount(price, discount):
    return price if discount == 0 else price * (1 - discount / 100)

👉 Simpler code is easier to read, debug, and maintain.

2. Write Meaningful Variable and Function Names