Grind on leetcode until you can do any problem quickly. It's all that matters for interviewing and you'll get a job making more than people with 15 years of experience that can't leetcode but can create beautifully architected apps and systems.
Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
171–180 of 460 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#172On the slightly more negative side: everything management tells you that's not in an email will have "never happened" when it's convenient. When you have a conversation with anyone where you think a plan was verbally agreed on, before doing anything your first action is to go back to your desk, write it in an email, send it to them as confirmation and find at least 1 other person, ideally in your reporting line, whic…
I have never had to do this nor seen anything like this behavior in my 6 years of work in the industry. This sounds incredibly in bad faith, and I would probably take it as a signal to go job search for a better work environment if I witnessed this in my day to day.
Months ago, I estimated a feature to take 3 weeks to build. A couple of months later, deadline nearing, a new developer was asked how much time it would cost to build and they told the product owner that it would take about 3 weeks. The product owner then looked at me, annoyed, telling me that nobody ever told them that it would take that long to build. I was really happy that I could show them the initial estimate I gave them.
If you haven't experienced this ever, definitely be extremely grateful. Also, when you switch jobs, beware that past experiences are no guarantees.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#173Next question : as an indie developer, what are my options for code review ?
set your static analyzers to 'anal'.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#1741. Don't blindly follow advice of "experts" you read. 2. Don't write clever code, write readable code. Participate in code golf or obfuscation contests to scratch the itch if you have one, but keep it out of production code, even if its a private project that you will never share with anyone; it will save you from yourself.
> Don't write clever code, write readable code.
Good one. Clever code is really tempting. It feels cool to do something in one line instead of six and call it a day. In many cases, the mature thing to do is to know how to do the cryptic one-liner, but write the six lines anyway for readability and comment them.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#175do not burnout I know you are young and you feel like you're invincible. I know you can pull an all-nighter and work the next day just fine. We have all been in that situation and believe me, it is gonna take a toll at your performance ... and it could even trigger or help you develop some health issues in your life that can sabotage you down the line. Realize there's only so much progress one can do in the day. Stop…
Aren't young people allowed to, well, be young though? When you don't go to nightclubs, don't have friends to call at 1am and can't play guitar in your 400sqft apartment with neighbors on all sides of the world's thinnest walls, is it a terrible thing if coding all day and all night on relatively minor problems to make somebody else five figures a week is your primary source of excitement? Does it not beat alcohol an…
Why is the alternative nightclubs and counter-strike though? Why not, getting a good nights sleep, reading books and lifting weights?
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it doesn't even have to be any malice. People forget things, (re)interpret things until a thing is no more, or just misunderstand them from the get-go. This is a good advice, glad to see it. While it won't be helping you much to get through your day, it'll count where and when it matters a lot.
I think you're underselling this. You're right that malice is relatively rare. Ambiguity, however, is the norm. For example, say you have a quick discussion and decide you will do task X and your colleague will do related task Y. You nod and head off to work. For most people, this feels like a commitment but if they haven't explicitly promised a deadline then there's no assumption of when it'll be done. So it might a…
Yea this whole thread should be upvoted higher. Document everything. I’ve gotten into the habit of documenting everything I’ve worked on at the end of each week, just so I have a record. It comes in handy at review time when you’re asked to write about your accomplishments or whatever other hoops management has you jump through to justify your existence.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#177Trying to make humans do the things computers do well is very difficult.
Trying to make computers do the things humans do well is nearly impossible.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#178Unless you are in academia/research, your job is not to produce software - it is to solve customer problems, add customer value, and help your team-mates and wider colleagues. You should be able to trust your colleagues on the marketing and product side of things, and while you should be honest with them about tech limitations/requirements, you need to be able to work with them to deliver product.
But to have a career you also need to pad your resume with the right buzzwords. Just solving business problems without considering your resume is good for the business but will make it very difficult to advance your career if you are an engineer.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#179Learn about the business side of the company. It helps tremendously if you understand how management/sales/marketing/etc think. Don't follow your passion. Passion will come if your work is meaningful, you are competent and respected for it. So instead work on your competency in whatever field. Leave if the environment will never respect you anyways. All software problems can be solved if you work on it long enough. D…
> "Never assume anybody is stupid."
OMG THIS. This is one of the best things anyone can learn.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#180Read at least HackerNews and possibly some other tech news site regularly. And then make sure to not get too caught up in the hype for new stuff. As someone working in technology, you are going to be learning new stuff continually (or your usefulness is going to diminish over time). By keeping up to date with tech news, you get a lot of context for what people are using, what's coming down the pipe etc. You may end u…
> Read at least HackerNews and possibly some other tech news site regularly. And then make sure to not get too caught up in the hype for new stuff. Interesting because I advise the exact opposite: do not waste time reading HN, just find one thing that is interesting and master it. Then repeat. As much as I like HN there is a lot of noise here. Novice mind can easily fall into a trap looking for signal here.
> there is a lot of noise here
This is true. However, much of what I know about how software development can work, I've learned from reading HN. I've learned loads about cloud, containers, micro services, project problems, etc. This helps me understand all the discussions around me while I was a junior and allowed me to successfully lead development of a SaaS product. If I just focused on learning a single thing, I wouldn't have been able to grasp all the other stuff that is necessary to actually build a product from scratch.