I'm a software developer based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. I've got a wide range of experience in companies of varying sizes and cultures, and in roles of varying degrees of responsibility.
1: Refer to their lack of knowledge constantly ("I'm just a junior") - don't do this! Lack of experience doesn't mean your opinion is worth less. Also, the more you remind people that you're "just a junior", the longer people will treat you as one, even after you don't feel it's true any more.
2: Don't ask enough questions, or don't ask questions early enough - if you give me the impression you understand something, then I'm going to imagine that you do. But if you make it clear that you don't understand something, I'm going to make sure that you do! This is a tough one of course, because I know that as a junior developer, it's often hard to know whether you understand something or not, and as a mentor I have a lot of responsibility for not letting you feel like you have to pretend to understand things.
3: Want something done for them, rather than wanting to learn how to do something - pretty obvious one but when mentoring junior developers, you're not there to do their work, you're there to help them grow. Thankfully I've only ever experienced this with one junior developer ever, and I'm pretty sure that this is an uncommon issue on the whole in software engineering.
Senior devs frustrate me when they:
1: Forget that they were junior developers once too.
I think every senior dev can probably recall a time when they were junior devs, and their own mentors (or just senior devs around them) would get frustrated by their questions. I certainly do. If you feel people are getting frustrated by your questions, perhaps gently remind them that you weren't born with a knowledge of the things you're asking about; hopefully they'll remember that they weren't either. :-)
I'm a software developer based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. I've got a wide range of experience in companies of varying sizes and cultures, and in roles of varying degrees of responsibility.
It's a funny balance isn't it. I encourage absolute honesty about your own level of knowledge, in the sense that I 100% believe that it's totally fine to say "you know what, I have no idea", about anything, because everyone has gaps in their knowledge.
But the reason I discourage people from constantly reminding others that they're "new" or "junior" etc. is that when people do that, other people have less faith in them; often team leaders / project managers / whatever will end up avoiding giving people "tricky" bits of work if those people are actively suggesting to people that they're less capable, and that really just perpetuates the problem!
So yeah, I guess what I'm saying on that one is just be open, but not apologetic, about what you do and don't know. And that's advice for everyone, not just junior software engineers. :-)
Awesome that you tell people the same thing; genuinely pleased to hear that sort of message coming from other places too!
I'm a software developer based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. I've got a wide range of experience in companies of varying sizes and cultures, and in roles of varying degrees of responsibility.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying I'm immune to this. If you're in the middle of something and you're being asked questions frequently, feeling a tinge of irritation is natural and often unavoidable. But yeah, as you say, you need to keep that in check and make sure that you don't make people feel like it's "unsafe" to ask for help.
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Junior devs frustrate me when they:
1: Refer to their lack of knowledge constantly ("I'm just a junior") - don't do this! Lack of experience doesn't mean your opinion is worth less. Also, the more you remind people that you're "just a junior", the longer people will treat you as one, even after you don't feel it's true any more.
2: Don't ask enough questions, or don't ask questions early enough - if you give me the impression you understand something, then I'm going to imagine that you do. But if you make it clear that you don't understand something, I'm going to make sure that you do! This is a tough one of course, because I know that as a junior developer, it's often hard to know whether you understand something or not, and as a mentor I have a lot of responsibility for not letting you feel like you have to pretend to understand things.
3: Want something done for them, rather than wanting to learn how to do something - pretty obvious one but when mentoring junior developers, you're not there to do their work, you're there to help them grow. Thankfully I've only ever experienced this with one junior developer ever, and I'm pretty sure that this is an uncommon issue on the whole in software engineering.
Senior devs frustrate me when they:
1: Forget that they were junior developers once too.
I think every senior dev can probably recall a time when they were junior devs, and their own mentors (or just senior devs around them) would get frustrated by their questions. I certainly do. If you feel people are getting frustrated by your questions, perhaps gently remind them that you weren't born with a knowledge of the things you're asking about; hopefully they'll remember that they weren't either. :-)
It's a funny balance isn't it. I encourage absolute honesty about your own level of knowledge, in the sense that I 100% believe that it's totally fine to say "you know what, I have no idea", about anything, because everyone has gaps in their knowledge.
But the reason I discourage people from constantly reminding others that they're "new" or "junior" etc. is that when people do that, other people have less faith in them; often team leaders / project managers / whatever will end up avoiding giving people "tricky" bits of work if those people are actively suggesting to people that they're less capable, and that really just perpetuates the problem!
So yeah, I guess what I'm saying on that one is just be open, but not apologetic, about what you do and don't know. And that's advice for everyone, not just junior software engineers. :-)
Awesome that you tell people the same thing; genuinely pleased to hear that sort of message coming from other places too!
Yes! And it's easy to do in the moment, but it's something you should be consistently checking yourself on.
Oh yeah, I'm not saying I'm immune to this. If you're in the middle of something and you're being asked questions frequently, feeling a tinge of irritation is natural and often unavoidable. But yeah, as you say, you need to keep that in check and make sure that you don't make people feel like it's "unsafe" to ask for help.