How to Ask Questions as a junior developer

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Asking questions is a common part of a junior developer’s workday. As junior developers, we often feel afraid to ask questions because we are either afraid to ask dumb questions or interrupt our busy coworkers.
So if you’ve found yourself thinking —

• Should I ask this?
• Maybe this question will make me look bad.
• I don’t think this question is important enough to disturb her.

You are not alone. This one is for you.
First, it is essential to understand — asking questions is crucial for junior developers to grow, learn, and improve. Avoiding asking questions is like holding yourself back and can also lead you to make mistakes.

I am a junior developer, I’ve worked with junior developers, and I’ve learned that there is a right way to ask questions and a wrong way.

I have learned that not all questions were born the same.

The most important thing about questions, from my experience, is that asking questions must result in you learning something new.

If you haven’t learned something new, than you are probably asking it wrong.

Let’s say you need to find a file in your codebase. You don’t know the project yet, and it’s your first time dealing with other’s code, you don’t have a single clue of how to find it.
So you go to the nicest coworker that you met, and you ask her where’s the file. She is so nice that she takes your laptop and open it for you. Great, in 3 seconds, you got the answer, you can keep going. But what have you learned? What will happen next time? Will you go and ask each time you’ll need to find a new file?

Ask “How” and not “What.”

Photo by Antoine Dautry on Unsplash

Let’s say that your teacher asked you how much is 2+7. You don’t know how to solve it, so you ask your parents. They can tell you — “oh, it’s 9”, but it won’t teach you how to solve the next similar problem. They will tell you the way to solve it, so from now on you will be able to solve similar exercises by yourself. Why is coding any different?

My suggestion is to ask yourself first what do you need to know. Do you need to know where the file is, or do you need to know How to find files in the codebase?

Side Note → sometimes, for this kind of questions, it is good to write down the answer, if you are a forgetful person like me.

Finding a file is quite a simple question. What happens when you try to do something, and it doesn’t work?

Give it a real try first

How many times have you asked a question, and when you got the answer, you thought, “Oh right, I forgot about that” or “Oh, that’s a simple solution.”
It means that you don’t try answering your question, and when you get the answer, you won’t feel like you’ve learned something new.
It is effortless and tempting just go and ask someone else. He will answer quickly, and you won’t have to think hard for the solution. But then again, you don’t improve, you waste other people’s time, and for a question that you and they know you can answer yourself. So before going and asking the question, ask it yourself first.

Then, when you gave it a real try, you can go to your coworker and ask —

Hey, I’m trying to do X, and it doesn’t work. I have tried doing Y, but then happens Z, what do you think the next step is?

With this question, you are achieving three things:

1. You are showing that you attempted to solve it so you will be taken more seriously.
2. You save the coworker time asking — ‘have you tried Y?’ (when Y is the things you could have thought about yourself).
3. You are asking for the way (the next step) and not the whole solution.

Notice how many results for this simple question

Befriend with Google

Google has the answer to 99% of your problems. Anything that is not your code-specific / company-specific question, you probably will find a solution for it in Google. You can even Google how to Google.
It is a skill every developer must-have. It is painful at first, and it is much easier just to ask someone. But with Google, you can keep the difficult questions to your coworkers. All the small ones, or the things you are not sure about, just Google it.

A classic scenario when you should use Google is when you get an error. Just copy the error message to Google search, and within seconds you can see someone else asking it, and learn from the answers he got.

Conclusion

1. Ask “How” and not “What”
2. Give it a real try first
3. Befriend with Google
4. Aim to learn something new from your question.

Using these four tips, you can be sure that when you do ask the question, it is a relevant one, and you aren’t wasting your coworker time or making yourself look bad.

Remember, asking questions is an integral part for you to improve. Just do it properly and with thought.