Be humble.
Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
21–30 of 460 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#22Don't say no to work just because it is not using the stack/vertical that you want to be in. Rejecting offers and jobs just because it is not in your preferred tech stack/department/vertical is the worst thing you can do for your career. I learnt this the hard way. Make sure you don't.
On the flip side, if you have tried a stack, and after half a year or so still don't like working with it, it's no shame to look for something else to work on that you enjoy more.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#23Develop good habits: physical conditioning, mental conditioning, avoiding drugs and alcohol, etc. If you want to be doing this kind of work for the long haul, protect your body and mind. In your 20s, you can be a couch potato, etc, and probably do this job. In your 50s? The proportion of people still doing this job who don't take care of themselves is much smaller.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#24Start off by going deep, not wide. You'll pick up other languages and technologies over time. Pick a stack that appeals to you and focus on it for a while, learning its idioms and best practices and improving your development fundamentals.
Good advice, mine is somewhat opposite :)
Never, ever, stop learning. Don't feel too bad if you can't find time for a personal project like everybody else seems to have. Just make sure you are up-to-date with the hectic changes in the programming world.
Every single time you're on HN and you're reading an article about Kubernetes while you're just a frontend web developer expands your horizons and advances your career.
And when you know something about most things, with some specialisation, go freelance and expand your skillset and knowledge further.
The moment you stop learning is the moment your career crystallises and dies.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#25If you can, don't hesitate to ask senior dev for help (but only once you've done your own research). In that case, knowing how to explain what's the problem, in the context of what you are trying to do (the context is important because of the XY problem). Communication with non-dev and person outside your project is important, usually those person will either control the budget or be users and stakeholder. Admit your mistakes, especially when they affect other persons.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#26try to be autosufficient. if you have a problem, try to fix it yourself. try googling, reading source codes if you have to. it's very annoying when people come to me with questions that could have been resolved by doing 5 minutes of research online.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#27Say "yes" to new challenges, even if you think they are over your head. Everybody feels a bit of imposter syndrome, so don't let yours stop you.
There's no cure for impostor syndrome.
I have 13 years of experience, CTO and lead developer at my company and a part of me always thinks people are way overvaluing my skills.
You just learn to ignore it, but it never goes away.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#28Some developers have n years of experience, others have the same year of experience repeated n times.
The latter happens when a developer becomes too comfortable with their knowledge and stops learning, or when they emphasize development speed over learning.
If you want to be an expert, cargo cult needs to stop with you. Don't blindly imitate what others do, try to understand how things work and how they can work better.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#29Don't be scared of going into reading source code of libraries/frameworks you are using to understand how things work. The code will often be simpler than you think and allow you have a better, deeper understanding of how things work and empower you incredibly.
Also don't be scared if you arrive at some source code and can't make head nor tail of it. Given time and enough attempts you'll start to be able to find the info you need, but for some projects it'll never happen. :)
Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?
#30Unless 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.