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Discussion on: How to ask senior devs for help?

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Marcel van den Brink

I have been doing development for almost 25 years now, so I can speak from experience here.

Part of being a senior developer (probably the most important part) is to teach and mentor other people. And it is not just about helping other developers, but personally I also see it as another learning experience for myself.

After doing development for years you will notice that certain things will go "automatically". You implement something without any thought (of course you think on how to solve it, but since you recognise problems you also quickly find solutions). If someone asks questions about it... and especially the 'why' question, it makes you think again on why certain things are solved in a certain way. For the less experienced developer (I hate having names like junior, medior or senior) it is gathering of knowledge. For the experienced developer it is a reality-check. Explaining why something is done in a specific way also might bring other solutions, or problems, to the surface.

What I also learned over the years is that people are somehow scared to ask questions and think they are asking too much (just like you indicated). If you start your question with "Can I ask you a question about....", you allow the other developer to quickly consider the topic and estimate how much time it would cost to explain something. If he/she is in the middle of something, the reaction could be to come back later. This is not a way to tell you that they do not want to answer your questions, but are probably in the middle of solving a problem and want to keep their focus... and do not forget to indeed come back later, because the developer probably already has forgotten you had a question in the first place.

Best times to ask questions, is at the start of a working day... or right after a lunch or coffee break. The developer then did not start working again and is out of focus anyway (unless he/she had a great idea to fix a problem that he/she was struggling with).

But again.... do not ever stop asking questions!

Oh, and it works both ways!! If you see another (more experienced) developer sweating, sighing, etc... ask if you can help and if the problem could be explained. It feels very counter-intuitive, but is in fact very helpful. By explaining a problem to someone else, you almost always find the solution you were looking for.

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Claro A Briones

Well said! I second this view point, ESPECIALLY your last point! I've been stuck on several occasions along the way and I've found that if explain the problem to somebody (anyone really, lately it's been my wife) it clears your mind long enough to solve the problem.