A guide to the care and feeding of new devs

@amesimmons

"In my first week I went into panic mode. I was trying to do the job at 100%, but the reality of my skill base is that I know maybe 20 or 30%."

"One day a senior on my team said in a really frustrated voice, 'I don't understand why you still don't get this!' I felt really stupid and somewhat scared for my job."

"I was embarrassed to ask questions that I felt I was supposed to know."

My experience

Other experiences

How juniors can be better supported

2009

Journalist

2013

My first line of code

rails new railsgirls

2014

Learning in my spare time

Jan 2015

Web development immersive course

Apr 2015
First developer job 

Sep 2016
#Twitter

Being a junior dev...

Key findings

On average, developers  rated the level of support they received as a junior as 5/10

The top four emotions felt by junior developers were excited, overwhelmed, frustration and fear 

80% of developers who responded said juniors could be better supported in the workplace

git.io/v41CJ

Insights

Make or break

Recommendations

For seniors...

Regular 1:1s

Weekly => fortightly

Unstructured is good

Pair programming

Expedite learning

Daily => weekly

Code reviews

Win-win

Time to learn at work

Reading time

Knowledge sharing sessions

Internal tech talks

Hack weeks

Online courses

For juniors...

Ask for help*

* ... but it's also ok to be stuck

Be open about what you do and don't know

Leads to opportunity and learning, not embarassment

Review your teammates' code

You're not too junior!

Get involved in the community

Meet-ups 

Hackathons

Mentoring

Twitter    

Keep learning

Make time for any weak spots

"The best day was when my manager pulled me aside, asked how I was going and encouraged me to not be too hard on myself. He showed me I was valued, even as a junior. Without that I would probably have never made it to the day programming clicked for me."

A supportive  environment where juniors can be vulnerable without fear 

@amesimmons