The Biggest Reason You’re Still A Junior Developer
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It’s not necessarily that you lack the technical skills yet. Or that you don’t have enough years of experience yet. Or that you don’t have a large enough social network yet. Or that you haven’t had the opportunity to display your capabilities yet.
Instead, it all starts with your mindset.
Although this sounds very vague, I’ve worked with developers from varying levels and helped some junior developers grow. One thing that I noticed is that it’s relatively straightforward to separate a junior-level developer from the rest of the pack.
Once again, it’s rarely related to technical skills or any of the typical reasons we mentioned beforehand. Rather, it’s about the way they approach things.
They’re very afraid of doing the wrong things. More often than not, they need people to guide them with their tasks. In general, they have a very passive stance. Their train of thought only involves themselves. They’re afraid to voice their opinion. They’re afraid to ask “dumb” questions. And the list goes on.
This all originates from the underlying self-judgement of being a junior developer, someone who can’t provide value or make an impact until at least several years later.
However, it’s essential to understand that your experience isn’t what provides value or makes an impact. It’s about the things you do, the questions you ask, the things you say, and the way you approach stuff.
And most junior developers do exactly the opposite because of their self-judgement and because they’re afraid of doing the wrong things.
There are a lot of ways in which a junior developer can bring value to a team. But they all start with changing how you approach things. Be proactive. Ask those “dumb” questions. Don’t wait for people to come to you, reach out to them.
The first step to growing out of being a junior developer is not considering yourself as one.
This article is part of a series focused on the growth path towards medior level for junior developers. After working on it publicly, the series will ultimately be turned into an eBook which will be given away for a limited amount of time upon release.
If you’re interested in taking the first steps forward in your developer career, make sure to subscribe to The Junior Developer Handbook or check out some of my other junior-related articles on Medium:
