https://rachsmith.com/the-hardest-part-of-being-a-jnr/

A note from Rach Smith's digital garden

The hardest part of being a Junior Developer

Added: January 16, 2023

Tags: work development

Even though it was 12 years ago, I still remember what the most
stressful part of being a junior developer was. I was reminded of it
when I saw this meme in my Twitter timeline yesterday:

The "Draw 25" meme. In the first pane there is a Uno card with
"Attempt to solve problem before asking for help OR draw 25". In the
second pane there is a person holding 25 cards labeled "jr developer"

In my first developer job, I had no previous experience - just some
basic front-end coding and design classes at Uni. I had been hired by
an advertising agency to animate flash banners and code marketing
emails. The work atmosphere was fast-paced but I enjoyed the
challenge. There was a lot to learn but I was loving everything I was
learning. A lot of the people who worked there - 'ad people' were
intense personalities but I grew used to working with them.

I loved that job, and couldn't believe I was being paid more to do it
than in any hospitality role I had worked prior. There was just one
part that stressed me out: knowing how long I should work on figuring
out something by myself vs. asking for help. I had no context for how
long anything should take. I didn't want to be judged harshly for
asking too many dumb questions, but I also didn't want to appear to
be slow. I had the added pressure of feeling like I was representing
my entire gender with my performance.

My manager at the time must have noticed my anxiety around this, and
he did a wonderful thing. He made the timing aspect of it super
explicit for me. He would do things like give me my next task and
then say "try and get this done, if at any point you have spent an
hour without making any progress, come and ask for help". Then I knew
how long was too long to spin my wheels on something on my own. Most
of the time, I could keep figuring things out on my own, but when I
couldn't I could approach my manager without worrying whether I was
bothering him "too soon".

By the time I moved on from that job, with the help of that manager,
I had enough experience to be able to judge when it is time to ask
for help on something and didn't have to worry about it again.

As I've always worked on small teams, I haven't had the opportunity
to manage a green developer that needs a lot of direction. But I
thought I would just share this in case it is useful to anyone who
does. Try and be very specific when you share your expectations
around timing, it might help them out. It certainly helped me.

Thanks for reading! If you'd like to share your thoughts you can
leave a comment, send me an email, Tweet at me, or add an issue on
GitHub.

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