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Getting The Most Meaningful Relationship With Senior Developers
Guide to the optimal educational experience for juniors.
“Most of your life will depend on the relationships that surround you. Whether they’re good or bad ones”.
Then, I can simply ask you: why not trying to get the best possible outcome from your relationships with senior developers?
A senior developer is not a super-skilled robot light-years away from you. A senior is just a junior who grew up. He or she was in the same position you are right now. And is probably willing to help you learn.
Actually, I believe that true seniors are also so-called because they know how to interact with juniors. You are a growing resource for your company. And they know it. You are the person who will be able to give them support. To help to build staff. And a good senior will know. And they will share their knowledge with you to grow, to make the team and the product better.
Can you just stop for one second and understand how grateful someone should be for that? A person who has invested years in learning and practising something is now willingly sharing knowledge and, most important, time with you.
Note to the readers: Now, I’m not an angel in a fantasy world. And I know that, unfortunately, some of you out there have had bad experiences with seniors. Not every person is kind or willing to help. And this will be mentioned in future articles.
With that said, understand that you should carefully think about how you interact with seniors developer. Because you want to best optimize the outcome of your work relationship. I’m not talking about “using” somebody or just be a Stakhanovite around them. But how do you interact with a busy individual who’s more skilled than you? How do you really ask for help? How do you avoid feeling afraid to look stupid or unable to understand?
After three years of being a junior, here’s what I came up with when it comes to relationships with seniors inside dev teams.
#1 Politeness
They are human beings. Probably busy or worried about some deadlines. As time passed, I have come to realize how wrapped in a thousand tasks a highly important programmer can be in a team. And…
