Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#41

Post by Dowwie » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:11 AM UTC

As Pink Floyd said, "all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be".

The more fond you are of your tools, the less likely you may be to try others. Don't develop preferences too quickly. Try not to emotionally invest yourself in decisions you've made about languages, libraries, editors, operating systems, and other technologies that you will spend thousands of hours with. Technology changes so quickly that you can easily find yourself mastering a local Maxima where others have already left and moved onto higher ground. Try new technologies and adapt with the times.

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#42

Post by sheepz » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:13 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #24

zinckiwi wrote: post #4

Start 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 caree…

Reading is good, but often gives us a illusory perception of understanding, but things tend to stick even better when you experiment with them.

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#43

Post by drcongo » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:15 AM UTC

In tech, there is no such thing as a stupid question.

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#44

Post by rejschaap » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:17 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #24

zinckiwi wrote: post #4

Start 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 caree…

Don't overestimate reading an article about Kubernetes. It creates awareness of the concept and what it could offer, but that is not the same as going wide, it is too superficial.

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#45

Post by spondyl » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:20 AM UTC

It's tempting to feel like asking numerous questions can be "bugging people". Unless they tell you "Sorry, I'm busy today from X to Y" (they should if they respect their own time), look at it as providing the opportunity to teach

It sounds silly at first but for those of us who like to share what we learn, or think others aren't interested, we love it when anyone has questions for us!

Don't be afraid of failing a lot either. Personally I've learnt a great deal of things just because I tried to do nonsense things that failed and taught me a lesson.

I first dove into unicode (and did a talk at a meetup) because I had this absurdly stupid idea to make a program that "prints hotdog emojis every X minutes". It didn't work but just asking "Why?" lead me to a lot of answers and even more questions.

You never know when seemingly useless info comes in handy again (like obscure modules in the docs for your favourite language)

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#46

Post by jrs235 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 10:34 AM UTC

1_player wrote: post #27

perlgeek wrote: post #18

Say "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.

I'm confused. Are you saying the CTO and lead developer overvalue your skills or that they too think others overvalue your skills (as in they don't think as highly of your skills)?

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#47

Post by robbick » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:00 AM UTC

jrs235 wrote: post #46

1_player wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm confused. Are you saying the CTO and lead developer overvalue your skills or that they too think others overvalue your skills (as in they don't think as highly of your skills)?

I think he is saying that he is both the CTO and the lead developer

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#48

Post by jrs235 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:14 AM UTC

robbick wrote: post #47

jrs235 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Are you saying the CTO and lead developer overvalue your skills or that they too think others overvalue your skills (as in they don't think as highly of your skills)?

I think he is saying that he is both the CTO and the lead developer

Ah! Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#49

Post by XorNot » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:41 AM UTC

On 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, which you can cc it too.

Because it doesn't take an actively malicious manager to screw you over - it takes literally anyone who suddenly needs to change history to their own seniors for it to fall on you, the underling.

EDIT: And the friendlier or more casual someone is, the more important this becomes.

Re: Ask HN: What is your best advice for a junior software developer?

#50

Post by RickJWagner » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

Read as much as you can stand.

Draw lots of doodle-diagrams, then throw them away. Draw again.

Watch YouTube videos. Some people learn better by watching.

Above all, code a lot. If it doesn't make you happy, quit. If it does make you happy, look for more ways to improve your personal learning style.