With fresh new devs popping out of CS programs, bootcamps, and self-taught paths every day, chances are you are going to end up working with one. M...
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Hey great article! Thanks for sharing your experiences - I'm working as a senior and have had a few juniors on my teams and it's great to to get an insight like this.
One thing that works for me was to generally bond with them - Day 1, go out for a team lunch, get to know them, have a laugh etc. I tend to find they are more inclined to ask questions, speak up etc when they are really comfortable in the team. So building a supportive environment is a must.
Thanks again for the article, hope your job is going well Caitlyn!
I totally agree. That was super important for me, but for some reason I didn’t include that because I was wondering if more introverted people would feel the same. Now that I think about it, it’s probably a good practice regardless.
Thanks for the input! 🙌
This is great advice! One point in there that I'd like to lift up to be more explicit: Get to know the juniors as individuals. Different people learn differently, respond differently to the same teaching or mentoring. Don't adopt a cookie-cutter approach where you repeat what worked for someone else, but adapt your mentoring to each individual.
💯 agree! Good point
I really love these posts that you put together. I'm going to be going into my first dev position at AWS after I graduate this Summer from my non-CS PhD program and I can only hope there's support for newbies like myself.
I will hope for you too!
So, how is being a professional developer treating you anyways? Based on your posts, you seem to be doing very well thus far. Always happy when I hear this type of success story =)
It has been treating me quite well! The code is often confusing and mind boggling but I feel supported by my coworkers and community so that’s all I can ask :)
Great article!
One thing I have found is to refrain from doing a keyboard takeover, yes it can be tough to not just crank out the solution to their question. Let them ask the questions and explain the process as outlined above.
Allow a safe space to fail, and a safe space for those fails to become key learnings.
I love the passion new devs add to my team and we are always trying to bring on new entrys to the industry. Focus on sustainable addition where team members can support them efficiently. We have found a 3 experienced devs to one new dev seems to allow enough support to help them get going with enough support.
Great article. One thing I try to keep in mind with Juniors is career development. I want to expose them to as many diverse learning opportunities as possible while they're working for me for the benefit of them as an individual. I try to make sure they learn about things they might not be personally responsible for, like architecture, DevOps, infrastructure, etc. Not only does it make them more well rounded developers but it boosts their skills for their next position.
Let's face it, most of them won't retire working for you. Giving them this type of exposure not only benefits them while they work for (or with) you but also prepares them for success in the rest of their career.
It's the old adage - "what if we train them and they leave? What if we don't and they stay?"
This is a really useful post for me, as I'm currently trying to improve my mentoring/supporting skills. It's great to read from someone who's recently gone through it from the other perspective.
I've found this to be particularly helpful. (No surprise, I guess.) There are a couple of different versions of this: pairing on their work, and pairing on my work.
When pairing on their work, I try to take a backseat and try to coach them through it. I have to resist the urge to just take over -- with mixed results, it has to be said.
When pairing on my work, we're equals. Thoughts/suggestions/ideas are always welcome, and often handy. Just recently, I was looking at a particularly hairy intermittent bug with a new dev. He quickly found a much more reliable way to recreate the problem. In doing so, the problem practically solved itself. It was a fantastic moment for both of us -- he took a lot of confidence from it ... and got to see me toil and struggle.
I love this suggestion. I've recommended a few books, but the idea of a discussion group takes it to the next level. I might start doing this.
Thanks for the article, Caitlyn!
Thanks for sharing this great article. I'm actually a junior dev and I totally agree on your advices .
I've been through rough team where I was completely alone and now I'm surrounded by several senior dev who takes time to help me and explain what's wrong in my code when I'm struggling.Their patience and advices are real boosters to improve myself and get better as a front-end dev.
These kind of team is a must for juniors :) .
That’s great to hear! I’m glad you’re in a better situation now
Caitlyn, these are some great tips!! One thing that you put it very nicely was to ask questions. I feel like we assume that someone new to the job would have all the questions and our job would be to answer them. However, even the way we ask questions can help junior devs ask more and ask better, with more assertiveness.
Started as a team lead for 3 Juniors and an intermediate earlier this year.
The feedback i have gotten so far seem to be that Pair programming and retrospectives (with games) seem to have been the biggest impact on their learning.
We would do mobbing on a simple task for new concepts and then i would get them to do pair programming on the subject, with some early feedback from me so they knew their were working in the right direction.
It worked so well it rubbed off on the other teams. :)
Fun fact, even among seniors, sharing ideas by asking people to read articles, watch videos etc. has never really worked for me when as a way of knowledge sharing.
This is amazing! Thanks so much for sharing your experiences in real time, Caitlyn!
Of course! Its fun and I want to see more juniors have a positive experience in their first job.
Hi Caitlyn,
Thank you so much for this post and sharing your personal experiences, I really enjoyed while reading those amazing words, as a software engineer junior I'm totally agree with you.
Thank you again
Great read. Thanks :)
One of the best articles I read today. Thanks for writing it. Makes me feel better about myself as a junior dev. Will definitely keep this in mind and use it once I feel like a senior developer.
Don't forget to congratulate the developer for how that person is improving and how much that person has learned!
Support your local junior dev ✨
Love the book club idea! Thank you Caitlyn!
Great post!!!
Hope lots is seniors get to read it and try to apply!!!
A very deep and thoughtful article. I hope that it will help to alter the mindset of mature developers about newcomers. Thank you! 👍
Some of our code is heavily criticized as spaghetti code or some devs say we code outdated code. That stuff gets to me at times