Asking Questions

I've been thinking about this for a while, but keep not actually writing this post. One of the biggest mistakes I see juniors make is not to ask questions when needed for fear of looking like they don't know what they are doing. Granted, part of that is the way senior developers often react to questions. April Wensel wrote a fantastic article last August about the toxic tone that is prevalent in tech. So two points here:

  1. Senior devs should all read that article and consider more carefully how they talk to junior devs (or any other person for that matter). I'm not picking on anyone - I have definitely been guilty of this as well. However, being able to explain concepts plainly and empathetically shows your knowledge more than making someone feel dumb because they don't also have that knowledge.
  2. Junior devs need to make sure to timebox themselves. Give yourself a chance to do some googling, see if you can find an answer to your question on your own. However, after that first 30 minutes/hour, you should bring your question to someone else. Ideally, you have someone that you can approach who will answer your question compassionately. Make sure you give them all the information you have and the attempts you have already made. This will help avoid feeling like you are getting repetitive information.