How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC • Hacker News Board

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#31

Post by jdietrich » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

dom96 wrote: post #19

DanBC wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/

I was hoping for something other than this. This is something that I am already aware of.

Write, pitch, repeat. Working as a runner might help you network and understand the industry, there are various mentorship schemes, but ultimately nobody gives a shit unless you've got a great script. You don't need permission from anyone to write a script and send it to a commissioner.

There's a mile-long queue of people who want to be a script writer, but a much more exclusive club of people who actually write and pitch scripts regularly. As the great Ronnie Coleman said, "everybody wants to be a body builder, but ain't nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight".

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#32

Post by eosrei » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 10:05 PM UTC

> I worked in an all-senior team once. Nobody admitted not understanding something. Everyone wrote overly-complex code just to 1-up each other

Sorry to hear about that experience. Those aren't senior developers. There's no room for learning when you think you know everything. Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#33

Post by spaceseaman » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 10:28 PM UTC

eosrei wrote: post #32

> I worked in an all-senior team once. Nobody admitted not understanding something. Everyone wrote overly-complex code just to 1-up each other Sorry to hear about that experience. Those aren't senior developers. There's no room for learning when you think you know everything. Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.

> Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.

Sadly this is far from my experience as well. It's likely a few toxic work environments.

Not to hijack your comment but I would like to offer a specific example I've seen of toxic behavior from senior developers. Many don't actually read the questions you ask of them or trust your knowledge. It's very similar to attitudes I see on Reddit, HackerNews, or StackOverflow:

"Hey I'm having a bit of trouble getting this to compile / run / there's this weird error I'm encountering. I read the documentation and based on that tried X, Y, and Z, but none of those solved my problem / my problem appears somewhat different." (Where each of X, Y, and Z are somewhat long explanations of what was tried).

"Did you try X?"

"Uh yes I did" (then to be polite I repeat my explanation of doing X)

"What about Y?"

You see what I mean. Especially in text, I find that some senior developers can't be bothered to actually read what someone else said. So if you're worried that you're a poor senior developer, I recommend you actually try and read what your younger colleagues say and ask of you. And especially trust that they are being honest with you. Don't assume that someone is lying or that they're wrong on the first pass - it's condescending, frustrating, and usually a waste of time. If you hired someone in the first place, you should be allowed to assume a bare minimum of competency and if for some reason that fails, you can always question them after the fact. I think it's a result of our engineering mindset to assume absolute idiocy in every case and then work our way up, but I think it's more productive (and especially better leadership) to assume that your subordinates know what they are doing.

In the context of an online forum like this, I think it's best to do the opposite: assume idiocy and work your way to competency - simply because we are all anonymous and don't know each other. The actual workplace should be treated differently though. People always perform better when you put your trust in them.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#34

Post by loftyal » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:04 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #4

Isn't the BBC a company where the only senior positions are as a contractor, charging 3 times the amount of their permanent counterpart for much less hassle? I am not sure if the author is trying to write a nice PR piece or is so inexperienced that he believes in all this corporate bullshit he's repeating. ^^

I was headhunted for BBC in London. The salary on offer was honestly laughable for a senior position. I declined.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#35

Post by valuearb » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:14 PM UTC

bjornlouser wrote: post #8

"I wanted to make sure that my first job post-university would be somewhere where I would feel happy and work not on my own, but with an agile team ..." It's interesting that any young developer would regard the micromanagement that comes with agile as a plus.

Agile, like waterfall, is only as good as it’s implementers. At my workplace we had lots of lingering bugs because the entire project had been poorly architected. We pushed to refactor and our scrum masters looked at us like we were crazy.

Putting patches in bugs fits in a 2 week cycle, taking months to do something right, does not.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#36

Post by valuearb » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:19 PM UTC

Lots of good stuff in this, but i have a couple of significant nits.

First, paired programming is a great way to help a junior learn. But it’s dependent upon their desire, i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing.

But otherwise paired programming is just a great way to slow me down.

Secondly, the open floor plan they described is a clear disregard for the productivity of individual software engineers. Maybe the author never experienced the difference, but it’s significant.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#37

Post by tcbawo » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:22 PM UTC

spaceseaman wrote: post #33

eosrei wrote: post #32

> I worked in an all-senior team once. Nobody admitted not understanding something. Everyone wrote overly-complex code just to 1-up each other Sorry to hear about that experience. Those aren't senior developers. There's no room for learning when you think you know everything. Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.

> Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers. Sadly this is far from my experience as well. It's likely a few toxic work environments. Not to hijack your comment but I would like to offer a specific example I've seen of toxic behavior from senior developers. Many don't actually read the questions you ask of them or trust your knowledge. It's very similar to attitudes I se…

That's not an age or experience thing. People can be jerks at any age or level. Good engineers do not equate illiteracy of the codebase (unfamiliarity) with ineptitude. Good engineers educate without contempt. On the flip side, many people come into an organization questioning why or how things are done. Often, the current product is a ball of inperfection and compromises. Spend 2x more time reading the code than asking questions. Understand why a fence was put there before you tear it down.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#38

Post by danielharrison » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:23 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #36

Lots of good stuff in this, but i have a couple of significant nits. First, paired programming is a great way to help a junior learn. But it’s dependent upon their desire, i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing. But otherwise paired programming is just a great way to slow me down. Secondly, the open floor plan t…

Entirely subjective.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#39

Post by eosrei » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:37 PM UTC

spaceseaman wrote: post #33

eosrei wrote: post #32

> I worked in an all-senior team once. Nobody admitted not understanding something. Everyone wrote overly-complex code just to 1-up each other Sorry to hear about that experience. Those aren't senior developers. There's no room for learning when you think you know everything. Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers.

> Senior developers mentor, simplify, document, and admit when they don't know the answers. Sadly this is far from my experience as well. It's likely a few toxic work environments. Not to hijack your comment but I would like to offer a specific example I've seen of toxic behavior from senior developers. Many don't actually read the questions you ask of them or trust your knowledge. It's very similar to attitudes I se…

That is not a senior developer, developer or even technology specific issue. You can experience immature egotistical indifference in any job. "Senior" developers who act like that are "senior" in title only.

Re: How We Grow Junior Developers at the BBC

#40

Post by makmanalp » Sat, Sep 23, 2017, 11:51 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #36

Lots of good stuff in this, but i have a couple of significant nits. First, paired programming is a great way to help a junior learn. But it’s dependent upon their desire, i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing. But otherwise paired programming is just a great way to slow me down. Secondly, the open floor plan t…

> i do it frequently with one whose eyes glaze over when i explain what i’m doing and i know when they start surfing the web while i’m implementing

This is so sad and frustrating. I get distracted easily too, but when someone is taking time to show and explain something to me, they have my full attention. Anything less is so disrespectful and just a waste of time.