Going into my second year. Informal feedback has been good. Supported a more senior developer on new services. Most tickets get completed within the sprint. And I’ve gotten better at grooming tickets before development. I think one area I’d like to get better at are system design and more in-depth knowledge of modern technologies. I don’t expect to be at the same level as our tech lead with 13+ experience, but when our team works through issues or design solutions I’m often lost and can’t contribute much. My current goal is just to ask questions I feel others on the team are afraid to ask (since I’m the most junior) and ask questions to probe into the solution and see if that rings any bells for others 🤦🏾♂️ Outside of that, I’d like to also work on my leadership skills, interact with more senior individuals, and weirdly enough, make a name for myself. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Yoe: 1+ TC: 110 + Target bonus
I would suggest you to keep reading, and thinking about code and designs. There is plenty of good writers that can help you accelerate your learning. I think one of the biggest tech things juniors miss is to not think abstract instead more code oriented. Your point of asking questions is good, but make sure you are making them in the right place as well as you are asking something genuine and not only for getting visibility. Some things you may want assess in your self: - your ability to push back (in designs, in code, in the quality) - your ability of articulating the solution of a problem - your writing skills (emails / designs)
Lear debugging!
Learn**
Consistent, continuous, and open communication. Learn to say I don’t know and also learn that saying I don’t know doesn’t make you a bad engineer. Learn from those moments and learn from your mistakes as well as the mistakes of peers. I’m not expecting a junior to be able to handle it all without help or research. But I definitely know that a junior that can’t research or ask for and learn from help will just become a junior with a couple more years of experience. Source: recently had a colleague be stumped by something, refuse to ask for help, reject help when offered, and insisted that it “works on my machine” and “in my 13 years of experience, I’ve never seen software work differently in one environment vs another environment”. That’s how you become a junior with 13 yoe. Edit: I’m not claiming you possess these professional character flaws, just dropping here if anyone reads this and could become a little more self aware
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Mostly I want to see a junior learn how to own their shit. If you're blocked, get unblocked. If something isn't moving, at least try to get it moving. It's fine to have questions but if I'm constantly being asked stuff that's easy to find in the docs for Jest, React, etc. I start to think a person is lazy. If you're stuck and asking questions please have read the docs and be able to explain what you've tried. Ask for small design opportunities, like a feature that requires small changes in two applications for example, you should be trying to learn how to write those tickets, do the work, and have it actually work. Basically you should be trying to be more effective at single ticket execution (to become a good junior) and start to dabble in higher level work (or you will always just be doing tickets written by someone who has gotten further in their career).