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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

#61

Post by distantaidenn »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #55

I have not been a junior developer for a long time, but I occasionally get treated like one. One day after joining a new employer I raised my first or second pull request - and one of the longer term members of the team reviewed it and really let me have it! In every single line he found problems with my style, approach, everything - and he wasn’t really polite about any of it either. So I wrote back that it was actu…

It's their ego. I'm now at the CTO level, but I still code as a hobby (daily) and will contribute as necessary to a product with coding. A couple years ago, during a stretch with a previous client, I wrote a bit of code. With my second PR, one of the code reviewers tore my code to shreds. It was 90% styling and 10% theory. As for the styling, sure, it was fair enough. I was new to their culture and it was trivial changes -- 5 minutes of work.

The last 10% was simply a theory issue. The reviewer wanted things his way, which would have taken an inordinate amount of time for the feature. I told him that it was unnecessary, and would increase dev time. I was thinking about the entire product process, while he was focusing on how the code should look -- which was purely arbitrary.

He wouldn't waver, and delayed my PR. It eventually was escalated to the head of engineering, who sided with me. It was a trivial feature, and my code was tested and worked -- it just wasn't the reviewer's way of doing things.

Anyway, it got merged as is. But, I can only wonder about how a junior dev may have handled it. Wasting hours of time to conform to a particular senior engineer's arbitrary "way" of doing things -- correctness be damned. As for my own code reviews, I follow a simple process: 1. Can I parse it in 10 seconds? 2. Does it fit the specs? 3. Is it tested? 4. Is it extensible?

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#62

Post by DangitBobby »

tester457 wrote: post #37
mkl95 wrote: post #9

I loathed my time as a junior developer. Being a senior dev is like working in a different industry. Leverage beats jerks like rock beats scissors.

> Leverage beats jerks like rock beats scissors. Could you expound on this?

If you're senior people can't be assholes to you without risking you walking out.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#63

Post by watwut »

zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #55

I have not been a junior developer for a long time, but I occasionally get treated like one. One day after joining a new employer I raised my first or second pull request - and one of the longer term members of the team reviewed it and really let me have it! In every single line he found problems with my style, approach, everything - and he wasn’t really polite about any of it either. So I wrote back that it was actu…

Oh yeaaaah. This one sounds like extreme tho. But yes, practically, I eventually grew to consider most of the "how to behave on code review" social advice article to be naive and wishful thinking.

Fairly often, you gotta show confidence and show boundaries.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#64

Post by watwut »

c7DJTLrn wrote: post #12
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…

>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.

HR is not intervening in lows stakes ordinary day to day conflicts, power struggles or personality clashes such as this one. Nor are they able to.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#65

Post by skibidibipiti »

distantaidenn wrote: post #61
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #55

I have not been a junior developer for a long time, but I occasionally get treated like one. One day after joining a new employer I raised my first or second pull request - and one of the longer term members of the team reviewed it and really let me have it! In every single line he found problems with my style, approach, everything - and he wasn’t really polite about any of it either. So I wrote back that it was actu…

It's their ego. I'm now at the CTO level, but I still code as a hobby (daily) and will contribute as necessary to a product with coding. A couple years ago, during a stretch with a previous client, I wrote a bit of code. With my second PR, one of the code reviewers tore my code to shreds. It was 90% styling and 10% theory. As for the styling, sure, it was fair enough. I was new to their culture and it was trivial cha…

[dead]

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#66

Post by midasz »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #36

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…

It's also just silly to get stuck on little things for too long because of ego. I've done it, and honestly it still happens sometimes, but it's so freeing to not have to feel that pressure.

In one of my previous jobs I had a great relationship with one developer in particular. We've both seen great work from each other so knew we weren't just coasting but it took one of us to just say, hey dude any idea why this isn't building? I took one look and it was something obvious - easy fix and he could move on. That didn't make me feel like a genius, it just made me happy to know there was such trust. He knew I wouldn't judge him and since then the back and forth was super simple. Greatly improved both our work, since now it's also way simpler to ask eachother for input on other things.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#67

Post by nicbou »

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 work alone, but I can’t count the number of github issues I typed but never opened because of this.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#68

Post by antihero »

distantaidenn wrote: post #61
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #55

I have not been a junior developer for a long time, but I occasionally get treated like one. One day after joining a new employer I raised my first or second pull request - and one of the longer term members of the team reviewed it and really let me have it! In every single line he found problems with my style, approach, everything - and he wasn’t really polite about any of it either. So I wrote back that it was actu…

It's their ego. I'm now at the CTO level, but I still code as a hobby (daily) and will contribute as necessary to a product with coding. A couple years ago, during a stretch with a previous client, I wrote a bit of code. With my second PR, one of the code reviewers tore my code to shreds. It was 90% styling and 10% theory. As for the styling, sure, it was fair enough. I was new to their culture and it was trivial cha…

If they were actually competent the styling changes would have been caught/fixed with automation. If they can’t set up linting and formatting as part of their CI…well I don’t think they have any right to call themselves senior.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#69

Post by shynrou »

annie_muss wrote: post #47

I'm a junior developer in senior developer's clothing and asking for help is one of the hardest things. That strong feeling of "I should be able to do this by now" often spirals out of control. "I'm stuck" --> "I should ask for help" --> "It's been a week and I've done nothing" --> "This feels so bad I'm just gonna futz around on the internet". It's a hell of a cycle.

Try to shift your perspective, asking for help when needed is a strength. It means you know your limits, that your not infalible. Asking for help is often the most productive thing you can do.

It always feels bad not getting anywhere or even worse having to scrap past work, but not checking with others wastests everybodies time. Other people are waiting on your results even if you never meet them. And if nobody is able to help you can either try to plow through or accept defeat.

Re: The hardest part of being a junior developer

#70

Post by jen20 »

tidenly wrote: post #60
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #55

I have not been a junior developer for a long time, but I occasionally get treated like one. One day after joining a new employer I raised my first or second pull request - and one of the longer term members of the team reviewed it and really let me have it! In every single line he found problems with my style, approach, everything - and he wasn’t really polite about any of it either. So I wrote back that it was actu…

I still work on a team the person who mentored me four years ago. He's a great guy, but sometimes in front of other engineers he'll still treat me like I'm a junior - and start explaining some incredibly simple concept to me like an idiot. Sometimes things I obviously knew before even joining, like how HTTP verbs work. It's just a quirk of his without malice I think, but it does get to me depending on who its in fron…

Whenever I encounter someone attempting to be condescending while talking about “HTTP Verbs” I pull open the RFC for HTTP and demonstrate that the word “verb” literally does not appear in the document.
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