<story><title>Absolute truths I unlearned as junior developer (2019)</title><url>https://monicalent.com/blog/2019/06/03/absolute-truths-unlearned-as-junior-developer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>Thank you.  Agreed completely&lt;p&gt;I see software as a form of literacy, and it both amuses and saddens me to hear things like &amp;quot;I used to write code, but since I moved to management I have stopped&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t hear phrases like &amp;quot;I used to read and write English, but since I moved to management I have stopped&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It seems sad to note that this &amp;quot;move to management&amp;quot; is now also becoming the &amp;quot;move to senior engineering&amp;quot;.  This indicates to me some problem with job title inflation  - like there are not enough manager slots so the management layer is moving down a rung to senior engineer.&lt;p&gt;Edit: of course Linus Torvalds wrote more emails than code. Which tends to indicate something.</text></item><item><author>silisili</author><text>I hate that this has become the norm.  Sometimes, even most of the time, tight clean code and proper data structures and clean smart queries are vital for both cost and performance reasons.&lt;p&gt;That smart(experienced) people think up how to approach a problem and throw it over the wall to the juniors makes me sad, even if it has become somewhat commonplace.&lt;p&gt;I was actually offered a position doing exactly that for a rather successful, nonFAANG valley company.  Literally &amp;#x27;decide how to solve the problem, then hand it off and never think about it again.&amp;#x27;  It sounded awful for everyone involved.  I&amp;#x27;d just write in abstracts and never code, and the coder just codes without thinking a ton.  Sounds terrible for both party&amp;#x27;s growth.</text></item><item><author>camjohnson26</author><text>The truth I had to unlearn is that coding is a solitary activity, and that coding is the most important part of a senior software engineer’s job. Now I rarely have the chance to code for a few hours straight because if I have enough information to write code then all that’s left is the easy part. The hard part is coordinating, defining the problem, planning for the future, and communicating the current status of the problem. Not to mention onboarding newer devs who haven’t learned the technologies yet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>corrral</author><text>Consider the manager who tries to put in a couple hours a week helping with filing (as in, organizing paper files). Let&amp;#x27;s say the filing system is very busy and constantly evolving to meet new needs.&lt;p&gt;Odds are they&amp;#x27;re just going to mess things up and annoy the people who do it as a major component of their job. Now, it may still be worth it, to keep the manager somewhat aware of how workers are doing their jobs, but it&amp;#x27;s not going to be &lt;i&gt;helpful&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;You need literacy to work on filing, as you need programming ability to do software development, but in either case it&amp;#x27;s not sufficient. If you&amp;#x27;re just dipping in here and there, you&amp;#x27;ll likely be screwing things up more than you&amp;#x27;re helping. There&amp;#x27;s too much context required.&lt;p&gt;Reading, writing, and programming may be forms of literacy, but if you try to jump in with tiny and inconsistent efforts to help someone write a novel—and I mean the actual writing, not helping them with organization or sales or something—you&amp;#x27;re probably doing more harm than good. Collaboration is possible even on novel-writing, of course, but &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; part-time efforts aren&amp;#x27;t likely to improve anything.&lt;p&gt;Programming is the same, and that&amp;#x27;s why once someone gets past about half-coding-half-managing it gets harder to keep helping with the coding, productively. It&amp;#x27;s not about literacy—the person trying to help with an hour or two of novel-writing a week is literate, after all—it&amp;#x27;s about context.</text></comment>
<story><title>Absolute truths I unlearned as junior developer (2019)</title><url>https://monicalent.com/blog/2019/06/03/absolute-truths-unlearned-as-junior-developer/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>Thank you.  Agreed completely&lt;p&gt;I see software as a form of literacy, and it both amuses and saddens me to hear things like &amp;quot;I used to write code, but since I moved to management I have stopped&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;We don&amp;#x27;t hear phrases like &amp;quot;I used to read and write English, but since I moved to management I have stopped&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;It seems sad to note that this &amp;quot;move to management&amp;quot; is now also becoming the &amp;quot;move to senior engineering&amp;quot;.  This indicates to me some problem with job title inflation  - like there are not enough manager slots so the management layer is moving down a rung to senior engineer.&lt;p&gt;Edit: of course Linus Torvalds wrote more emails than code. Which tends to indicate something.</text></item><item><author>silisili</author><text>I hate that this has become the norm.  Sometimes, even most of the time, tight clean code and proper data structures and clean smart queries are vital for both cost and performance reasons.&lt;p&gt;That smart(experienced) people think up how to approach a problem and throw it over the wall to the juniors makes me sad, even if it has become somewhat commonplace.&lt;p&gt;I was actually offered a position doing exactly that for a rather successful, nonFAANG valley company.  Literally &amp;#x27;decide how to solve the problem, then hand it off and never think about it again.&amp;#x27;  It sounded awful for everyone involved.  I&amp;#x27;d just write in abstracts and never code, and the coder just codes without thinking a ton.  Sounds terrible for both party&amp;#x27;s growth.</text></item><item><author>camjohnson26</author><text>The truth I had to unlearn is that coding is a solitary activity, and that coding is the most important part of a senior software engineer’s job. Now I rarely have the chance to code for a few hours straight because if I have enough information to write code then all that’s left is the easy part. The hard part is coordinating, defining the problem, planning for the future, and communicating the current status of the problem. Not to mention onboarding newer devs who haven’t learned the technologies yet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>BlargMcLarg</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d argue more people severely overestimate the need of communication &lt;i&gt;quantity&lt;/i&gt; and management roles&amp;#x2F;responsibilities have inflated everything as a result. Worse, people who want to primarily talk are going to advocate for others to talk more.&lt;p&gt;Regardless, whoever brings up what GP does is frequently bombarded with the old &amp;quot;communication important&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;soft skills matter&amp;quot; spiel in an attempt to validate the explosion of communicational requirements.</text></comment>