It sounds like you're just doing 'in house' stuff so you don't have to think about how well it will do in the market place. There are huge benefits to that. All you need to do is make sure you keep things as simple as possible, and above all else, make sure you have good ways to thoroughly test everything. Bugs in code are far more embarrassing when it damages the actual company you're working for. So you don't need to worry much about appearances, but just about reliable functionality.
Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
101–110 of 305 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#1021. Nobody is producing software to the highest standards of the industry. The best quality code I’ve ever seen was from very methodical recent grads who spent way, way too long writing it. Literally everybody else is cutting corners. Try not to do that.
2. Get a textbook for a subject which you have taught yourself. Read the table of contents. Assess which topics you know cold, and which ones you have blind spots in. You can assess your mastery of a topic this way.
3. I learned the most by making bad choices and then having to live with the consequences. I learned the second most by having to justify the corners I had cut to other adults. Neither one is fun, but both teach you to be better.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#103Craving for a team of more senior people to learn from, "yodas" who guide you - is a fallacy. I hear younger people mentioning it in interviews constantly as to what they dream team would look like. You can learn from everyone around you, regardless of their status. There is no "universal developer experience curve", everyone has more or less knowledge on a field or with a specific tool/framework. You can learn almos…
"It may sound reassuring that someone watches your back and won't allow mistakes or would help clean up a mess, but you should not keep relying on this anyway."
This assessment totally devalues the experience of having an more senior, more capable colleague to learn from. They are not there to watch anyones back, stop mistsakes, or clean up anyones mess. Rather the point is that the junior member is able to watch the senior person, observe how they solve their problems, and how they approach fixing their own mistakes. It's about tacit learning, not bein nannied/micromanaged.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#104There is a limit at to what one person on their own can achieve, or would want to try to take on in order to have some life outside of work.
You have been given an opportunity to build and lead team, hire the person you would want as a technical mentor. Focus on the big picture results, what will you be able to put on your resume? Built and Led a team that developed a technique/software/product that yielded $x result for company, or “worked on x product in y language”
It’s a different class
If someone who has a successful company wants to interact directly with you, learn everything you can from them, that is an opportunity greater than any tech bullshit
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#105If you utilize the global village of the Internet, why, yes.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#106It sounds like you're just doing 'in house' stuff so you don't have to think about how well it will do in the market place. There are huge benefits to that. All you need to do is make sure you keep things as simple as possible, and above all else, make sure you have good ways to thoroughly test everything. Bugs in code are far more embarrassing when it damages the actual company you're working for. So you don't need…
If that's true then OP should go out of their way to compensate for it.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#107Couple of important lessons that will keep you in good stead for a long time: 1. Learn how to learn well, continuously, and sustainably. Tech changes rapidly. And you will want to hop from one domain to another, just for keeping things interesting and to move with markets. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because you can start late and still be in the top percentile if you have the brains and wor…
How do you learn how to learn well?
i learnt that at university - by essentially not being taught, but being given curiosity on the subject and told to research it.
I am not sure there's any hand holding that can be given to someone to learn how to learn.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#108so many red flags here
> fresh graduate data engineer
to the company, they see this as "cheap labor"
> hired 6 months ago as a freelance
basically, they put you through the ringer without having to pay out benefits
> essentially functioning as a tech lead
a fresh out of college graduate is far from being qualified as "tech lead", you are out of depth here
> with full responsibility and ownership of designing, implementing, and hiring for the projects I'm assigned
basically you are a 1-bus factor team. hope you have negotiated pay accordingly.
> Our company is not a tech company, so I only have a couple of tech-oriented colleagues
you are a second class citizen at this company, your budget will be constrained, and be on the first to cut when it gets tough. In the O&G industry, the boom and bust cycles are quite frequent.
> Now I directly report to the director of the company
now there's internal pressure to perform at a much higher level than your experience.
If you want real advice, get the hell out of this company while you can. O&G industry itself is notorious for back stabbing/conniving.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#109Open source. I have learned a lot from all over the place, but dotnet comes heads and shoulders above the rest - those people truly take their time with you. I also contributed to CoreDNS as a learning exercise for Go, and they were notably patient and kind.
Re: Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?
#110Besides all other advice below, sometimes play the role of a mentor and approach a problem step by step and see how you will teach someone new to the field this will allow you to see gaps in your learning and improve your own learning.