Junior Developers and Taking Correction

A developer I work with said something insightful the other day that I’d like to share. It was about the experience of bringing a junior developer onto your team. A lot of times a junior developer will look to you as an example, seeking guidance and direction. That’s great. However, the reality of our work has deadlines, technical obstacles, and human obstacles that often prevent things from being done according to best practices all the time. We’re all learning, and in our effort to build the MVP, there are always mistakes and imperfections that end up in our work. Here’s how you explain that to your junior developer.

“There are bad things that I do that I know about, and there are bad things that I don’t know about. Please just point out everything you see, so I can get better.”

Experienced developers can learn a lot from junior developers if they don’t get defensive about taking correction.