Ask HN: How can I grow as an engineer without good seniors to learn from?

I can see some differences, but none of them seem "big".

In code you don't have all the extra communication avenues that we have when speaking, like body language, intonation, sarcasm and so on.

On the other hand, when writing code we are not speaking in real time. We can think about a problem for a while, consider the best possible way to solve a problem and how to explain it.

What do you see as a big difference?

Thank you very much for asking this question and triggering the discussion! I have nothing to add to what's already been said here, I was happy to see your question cause it's something that I keep thinking a lot about. I am not quite a fresh graduate as I have about 6 years of experience, but I do work in a field (embedded systems for MedTech) where mentoring could be quite beneficial in my opinion. I was particularly bothered by the lack of mentoring in my initial jobs and my recent job change has been largely motivated by this. In my current job, I now have engineers with a decade or more experience than me and it helped me in the following ways: 1. The most obvious benefit has been the fact that I can now reach out to my seniors in case I get stuck debugging something and I see no way out. 2. Another benefit, that's quite underrated IMO, is that having experienced engineers around opens up opportunities to observe them closely at their craft and question them (to understand why) about their design choices etc. 3. In my case, there is a strong motivation to compare my skill set with theirs and critically assess where my shortcomings/areas to improve are.

So many thoughts.

I have a feeling that there is no-one to learn from eventually as everyone is in continuous learning and the industry is fast evolving. In general, there are circumstances where this is definitely not true, but living in it and obsserving it to my current age of considered senior I am still a complete beginner in most of the tech scene tells me this way. My encounters and direct experiences generate a strong bias yet keeping an eye out here and else draws me to this conclusion and tells me that this must be mostly true.

From an other point of view there are lots of seniors. Anyone with 3+ years experience can be considered senior in this industry, given the pace techniques and approaches change (calling improvement would be part lie to a good portion). Which again, tells the same story: not much to rely upon but yourself and keeping a sceptic curiosity about the practices, especially the famed trends. These come and go. Those famed 20 years ago (hehe, more like 10, sometimes 5) are reformed and evolved a lot, mostly past recognition, or most of the time just died. Past techniques considered baaaad practice now, new ones dragging the industry to burning discussion topics and hiring sprees are infants.

The human and social aspects are downplayed in the industry with overwhelming technical dominance.This is where seniority may be a good role model, in mentality and attitudes, but it has no focus. Or sometimes work against it by promoting procedures of replacability: expected work methods and procedures promote the non-dependence on key persons, for the investment heavy industry it is better if the workforce is easy to pick up and lay off. Replacebale parts basically. That is not really an encouragemment for investing in continuity but to show off in trendy areas.

Probably you are already doing your best for doing your best and not making stupid mistakes. Perhaps you could harden your soul like everyone else and not taking seriously after making a stpid mitake, because the future you and all will look back at it and say, this was stupid. Like for so many past things we say now.

> to the highest standard of the industry

I believe I leave this uncommeted despite my deep intrinsic urge, not to attract even more downvotes when I share my mind in this topic, about the 'highest standard of the industry', both as participant and user. ; )

Best comment/advice I've seen in the thread so far.

Learn from your mistakes and prepare to make plenty. Having a mentor can be invaluable but isn’t a guarantee you won’t still make them. Read. Talk to the senior non-engineer people who work in the field, if possible. Hands-on experience can save your butt.