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Senior Developers Use These 5 Patterns Daily — Beginners Don’t Even Know They Exist
When you’re just starting out, writing code that works feels like a win — and it is.
But as you grow, you start to realize that great code isn’t just about making things work. It’s about making things understandable, extensible, and maintainable — not just for you, but for your future self and your teammates.
That’s where design patterns come in.
While beginners might focus on syntax and short-term solutions, senior developers rely on patterns — proven strategies to solve common problems — to write scalable and robust code.
Here are 5 patterns senior developers use almost daily (and most juniors haven’t even heard of).
1. Strategy Pattern — Clean Up Your “If-Else” Jungle
Problem: You have a ton of conditional logic, and it’s getting out of hand.
Beginner’s approach:
if paymentMethod == "paypal" {
processPaypal()
} else if paymentMethod == "stripe" {
processStripe()
} else if paymentMethod == "bank_transfer" {
processBankTransfer()
}Senior’s approach: They define a Strategy interface, and each payment method becomes its own implementation.
type PaymentStrategy interface {
Pay(amount float64)
}
type Paypal struct{}
func (p Paypal) Pay(amount float64) { /* ... */ }
type Stripe struct{}
func (s Stripe) Pay(amount float64) { /* ... */ }
func ProcessPayment(strategy PaymentStrategy, amount float64) {
strategy.Pay(amount)
}This makes the code easier to extend and test — you can add new payment types without touching existing logic.
2. Factory Pattern — Delegate Object Creation
Problem: Object creation logic is scattered and tightly coupled.
Instead of manually creating objects everywhere, seniors use a Factory to abstract the construction logic.
Why it matters: This hides complex setup steps and helps with testing, dependency injection, and managing configuration differences (e.g., dev vs prod).
func PaymentFactory(method string)…