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The hardest part of being a junior developer

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Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#31

Post by actually_a_dog »

Raed667 wrote: post #8
cke wrote: post #6

This one hits home for me. Early on in my career, I had a "mentor" tell me to try it on my own before asking any questions only to swear under his breath when I messed up. It was a massive source of anxiety balancing between asking a question and the risk of messing up. When working with junior engineers nowadays, I go out of my way to let them know that any question at any time is acceptable. I'll put down what I'm…

Agreed, but with the caveat of not making every single problem you encounter become your team's or your manger's problem. I've seen this especially with some interns, where given the (valid) advice of not being afraid to ask questions, go overboard and make every single task they might have everyone else's task as well.

Sure, that happens. But that's pretty easy to deal with. Just tell them before they start asking for help, they have to at least do some thinking about the problem. The explicit 1 hour time frame in the article is a great guideline.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#32

Post by Raed667 »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #31
Raed667 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, but with the caveat of not making every single problem you encounter become your team's or your manger's problem. I've seen this especially with some interns, where given the (valid) advice of not being afraid to ask questions, go overboard and make every single task they might have everyone else's task as well.

Sure, that happens. But that's pretty easy to deal with. Just tell them before they start asking for help, they have to at least do some thinking about the problem. The explicit 1 hour time frame in the article is a great guideline.

There is a difference when you say look for "at-most an hour" and "at-least an hour" before reaching out.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#33

Post by actually_a_dog »

TexanFeller wrote: post #22
c7DJTLrn wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Early on in my career, I had a "mentor" tell me to try it on my own before asking any questions only to swear under his breath when I messed up May I ask how long ago this was? Although shit colleagues and shit workplaces still exist, it feels like these days it would be shut down pretty quick by HR in the average company.

I have seen HR get involved in situations like this zero time in my career. I wouldn't want them to either.

That depends IMO. Is the "mentor" really the "manager?" If someone with power over your performance evaluations and future at the company is swearing under their breath every time you do something wrong, that's a problem that HR maybe should be involved in.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#34

Post by ethbr0 »

Justsignedup wrote: post #17

I solved this problem, quite well, and still do this all the damn time: 1) try to solve the problem 2) Gee, it's hard. shit. okay think think think 3) okay ask for help. wait... let's write a slack message. First write the problem, explain exactly what you tried, and ideas for next attempts. Explain your confusions. 4) OMG I SOLVED IT or 4a) Hit send. I find that 70% of the time, I don't hit send. 30% of the time it…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#35

Post by actually_a_dog »

Raed667 wrote: post #32
actually_a_dog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that happens. But that's pretty easy to deal with. Just tell them before they start asking for help, they have to at least do some thinking about the problem. The explicit 1 hour time frame in the article is a great guideline.

There is a difference when you say look for "at-most an hour" and "at-least an hour" before reaching out.

By Jove, I think you've got it!

I'm not saying "do not bother me before precisely 60 minutes have passed," but just "go spend some time with this before you start pulling in other people, but also do not hesitate to pull someone else in if you've made literally no progress in about an hour."

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#36

Post by LAC-Tech »

I wish developers talked and asked each other for help more. Not just juniors but seniors too.

This idea that we're all supposed to solve problems in a shared code base completely independently and we're wasting time helping/asking for help is poisonous.

Things get solved lot faster when someone comes in with a different perspective. And it keeps communication going.

Of course maybe everyone else is a lone genius and I'm the problem. Maybe. But I kind of doubt it.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#38

Post by bluefirebrand »

bob1029 wrote: post #26
Justsignedup wrote: post #17

I solved this problem, quite well, and still do this all the damn time: 1) try to solve the problem 2) Gee, it's hard. shit. okay think think think 3) okay ask for help. wait... let's write a slack message. First write the problem, explain exactly what you tried, and ideas for next attempts. Explain your confusions. 4) OMG I SOLVED IT or 4a) Hit send. I find that 70% of the time, I don't hit send. 30% of the time it…

I have an additional trick - If you are the person of whom help is frequently asked, employ a nominal delay before you get into it. "Sure - let's get on in 5 minutes" I've found this to work well. "hang on I'm going to try 1 more thing". And, then you don't hear from them until tomorrow.

I use this trick a lot. I tend to vary between 10-20 minutes though.

I also usually give them a starting point.

"Hey I'm in the middle of something. I can chat in 15 minutes or so. In the meantime if you haven't yet, try X, Y, Z"

This helps push them to at least try something so when I ask later "Did you try X Y or Z?" They can have some kind of answer.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#39

Post by ethbr0 »

pm90 wrote: post #21

Setting explicit time frames is really useful for both the mentor and mentee (or manager and employee etc). If someone is unable to complete a task within a set time, but explains their thought process and what they tried , I consider that to be a completely valid use of their time. Even if they are completely honest and say: "This seemed too hard and I tried for the first 15 minutes and then got bored and procrastin…

Junior developers often can't tell the difference between "I don't have the skill to do this" and "I don't have access/knowledge of internal processes to do this."

You can bang your head against the latter forever without making progress, especially if it's un/semi-documented, mostly tribal knowledge.

And the best way you're able to guess at it is by prior experience at other companies, which junior developers don't have.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#40

Post by messe »

cke wrote: post #6

This one hits home for me. Early on in my career, I had a "mentor" tell me to try it on my own before asking any questions only to swear under his breath when I messed up. It was a massive source of anxiety balancing between asking a question and the risk of messing up. When working with junior engineers nowadays, I go out of my way to let them know that any question at any time is acceptable. I'll put down what I'm…

Maybe this is a cultural thing, but did you ask what you were doing wrong when they swore?

For me, if somebody swore about something I was doing, I’d likely laugh and challenge them to either ask how I’d fucked up or how they’d recommend doing it.

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