Footnote: the company culture in which you find yourself may or may not facilitate As - the one I’m in right now, that professes to practice Agile (tm) micromanages user stories/time lines to such a degree that a dev would have difficulty doing anything but the bare minimum that fulfills the ACs
That sounds like a situation driven by fear. Step one (& it's sometimes impossible) is to acknowledge the fear. Forest from desert starts with acknowledging what we're afraid of.
I can't help but feel you've deliberately (and accurately) described the responsibilities and pitfalls of a junior but missed out the same for a senior...
... and in the same way missed one key behaviour of an A - the awareness and ability to share the knowledge and skills they have learnt.
If you’ll notice, the title of the piece is directed at juniors. I have plenty to say to seniors, managers, and execs. I’m just not ready to write another book.
No arguments from me but I do feel that missing out the ability to bring on juniors is something we would want some evidence of in up and coming A types... unless you're saving that for an additional tier, if you will, an S level?
Read about this kind of stuff before but never really paid it much attention except to try and do more. The Netflix keeper test comes to mind. This post is so much nicer to read and digest.
Just a note for those that get put in the C category - It's not always a "Wont' be here in a year" situation. Do be mindful of things like being in the wrong team, having personal life issues that are causing distractions, misinterpreting expectations (the interview seemed like they just want lots of work done asap and you really want this job to get on the ladder), and many more.
I really enjoyed this read thought, it's made me re-realise things I've not thought about in a long time and how I've been on both sides of the experience.
Note on the vocabulary (may have been intentional): There's a difference between noob and newb, although pronunciation is the same. At least in the gaming crowd, while both mean "beginner," newb implies someone who is new but willing to learn, whereas noob is derogatory, mocking someone who is clueless, unskilled, and refuses to improve.
The sorting you describe is accurate, but I've watched teams miss a fourth category: seniors who think they are sorting, but they are just measuring task completion disguised as A/B/C labels.
The real sorting never happens because the team pressure to ship means no senior has time to actually assess whether you are learning or just following patterns. Six months later they realize they promoted three C's and lost two A's to burnout. The framework is sound. The implementation breaks when the culture doesn't protect time for mentorship.
This is basically a reminder that “being busy” isn’t the same as “being valuable.” In other words, anyone can close tasks, but not everyone leaves things better than they found them.
I never even heard about junit or unit testing until after I got to industry. That was after multiple comp sci degrees (bachelors & masters) from my uni.
Footnote: the company culture in which you find yourself may or may not facilitate As - the one I’m in right now, that professes to practice Agile (tm) micromanages user stories/time lines to such a degree that a dev would have difficulty doing anything but the bare minimum that fulfills the ACs
That sounds like a situation driven by fear. Step one (& it's sometimes impossible) is to acknowledge the fear. Forest from desert starts with acknowledging what we're afraid of.
I'm interested in answers to this question as I'm in a similar situation.
I can't help but feel you've deliberately (and accurately) described the responsibilities and pitfalls of a junior but missed out the same for a senior...
... and in the same way missed one key behaviour of an A - the awareness and ability to share the knowledge and skills they have learnt.
Human relationships and all that.
If you’ll notice, the title of the piece is directed at juniors. I have plenty to say to seniors, managers, and execs. I’m just not ready to write another book.
No arguments from me but I do feel that missing out the ability to bring on juniors is something we would want some evidence of in up and coming A types... unless you're saving that for an additional tier, if you will, an S level?
Read about this kind of stuff before but never really paid it much attention except to try and do more. The Netflix keeper test comes to mind. This post is so much nicer to read and digest.
Just a note for those that get put in the C category - It's not always a "Wont' be here in a year" situation. Do be mindful of things like being in the wrong team, having personal life issues that are causing distractions, misinterpreting expectations (the interview seemed like they just want lots of work done asap and you really want this job to get on the ladder), and many more.
I really enjoyed this read thought, it's made me re-realise things I've not thought about in a long time and how I've been on both sides of the experience.
Excellent stuff as always.
Note on the vocabulary (may have been intentional): There's a difference between noob and newb, although pronunciation is the same. At least in the gaming crowd, while both mean "beginner," newb implies someone who is new but willing to learn, whereas noob is derogatory, mocking someone who is clueless, unskilled, and refuses to improve.
The things you learn…
TIL, ty for sharing!
The sorting you describe is accurate, but I've watched teams miss a fourth category: seniors who think they are sorting, but they are just measuring task completion disguised as A/B/C labels.
The real sorting never happens because the team pressure to ship means no senior has time to actually assess whether you are learning or just following patterns. Six months later they realize they promoted three C's and lost two A's to burnout. The framework is sound. The implementation breaks when the culture doesn't protect time for mentorship.
This is basically a reminder that “being busy” isn’t the same as “being valuable.” In other words, anyone can close tasks, but not everyone leaves things better than they found them.
unit tests should be a C level. don't graduate people from university if they don't write them.
I never even heard about junit or unit testing until after I got to industry. That was after multiple comp sci degrees (bachelors & masters) from my uni.
Same!, BSc and MSc here and never heard of testing or a test framework until I landed my first software job.
22 year old me:
> We can test code with... code! Mind blown. No more manual running everything and praying to the software gods