Ruby on Rails
Investing in the Future: Unlocking the Potential of Junior Developers

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Investing in the Future: Unlocking the Potential of Junior Developers

Hana Harencarova • December 19, 2023 • online

The video titled "Investing in the Future: Unlocking the Potential of Junior Developers" features Hana Harencarova discussing the importance of valuing junior developers within the tech industry. Hana emphasizes that companies often prioritize hiring senior developers while neglecting the potential of training and empowering junior staff.

Key points discussed in the video include:

- Background: Hana shares her journey from a background in psychology to becoming a developer, highlighting her experience with different coding languages and teaching opportunities, particularly for new parents.

- Onboarding Process: The importance of a supportive and structured onboarding process is emphasized. Hana discusses her effective onboarding experience at GitHub, which included having multiple mentors and buddies that facilitated her integration into the team.

- Creating a Supportive Environment: Senior developers play a crucial role in supporting new hires, encouraging kindness and openness. This approach fosters a culture where asking questions is normalized and new developers feel comfortable seeking help.

- Hands-On Experience: Hana stresses the value of hands-on learning from day one, allowing new developers to work on small, manageable tasks that contribute to real projects. This experience is vital for building confidence and understanding the team's processes.

- Progression and Independence: As developers grow in their roles, fostering independence and adapting tasks to their strengths allows for better performance and job satisfaction. Mentors are encouraged to communicate openly about goals and expectations to help juniors advance their careers effectively.

- Long-Term Vision: The video concludes with the message that investing time and resources in junior developers not only benefits the individuals but also the company in the long run by building a skilled and diverse workforce. Hana invites viewers to consider how they can integrate these supportive practices into their own teams.

Overall, the talk highlights the potential of junior developers and encourages organizations to create an inclusive, practical, and encouraging onboarding process to cultivate talent for the future.

Investing in the Future: Unlocking the Potential of Junior Developers
Hana Harencarova • December 19, 2023 • online

Let's talk about valuing junior developers more in the workplace because they're the future of our industry. Companies often struggle to find enough senior developers but overlook the chance to train their own. In this talk, we'll discuss ways to empower junior developers. As a senior, you'll learn effective ways to help their growth through hands-on learning and increasing their motivation. If you're a junior dev, we'll cover tips on advancing your career by leveraging your team. Join us to learn how investing in a strong, diverse team now benefits your company's future.
https://www.wnb-rb.dev/meetups/2023/12/19

WNB.rb Meetup

00:00:00.640 yeah and so with that let's start
00:00:04.839 um I uh will start a bit with my
00:00:08.719 background and how I got where I am now
00:00:11.480 so my formal background is in judgment
00:00:13.519 and decision-making psychology where I
00:00:16.440 had to learn R which is kind of
00:00:18.279 statistical program but it's also close
00:00:20.439 to programming languages because you
00:00:22.119 have to type those things like in a
00:00:23.840 command line and when I was learning
00:00:25.960 that um I really enjoyed it and at some
00:00:28.640 point I was like oh that's even more fun
00:00:30.960 than analyzing my own
00:00:33.000 data and then I was teaching paragliding
00:00:35.559 for a couple of years and then my
00:00:38.680 daughter was born and you know I thought
00:00:41.320 when she'll be like three months old
00:00:43.079 I'll take her with me back on the hill
00:00:44.920 and everything will work as before and
00:00:47.600 as you could guess this wasn't really
00:00:49.760 the truth and I still believe like it
00:00:52.760 would work if I could um drive with her
00:00:55.559 but she didn't want to drive in the car
00:00:57.199 so I wasn't that flexible I still was
00:00:59.440 teaching with her uh when she was like
00:01:01.840 one year old and later but already
00:01:04.119 during that time I realized okay I want
00:01:06.159 to have something else which I want to
00:01:08.439 do which I can do like more flexible
00:01:11.119 from home with her which is not weather
00:01:13.680 dependent and I kind of already was uh
00:01:17.360 looking after some WordPress website for
00:01:19.680 flying project and I was like okay I
00:01:22.119 want to learn more coding and more web
00:01:25.280 development I also totally by chance
00:01:27.960 stumbled upon a ruby monsters meetting
00:01:29.960 up which is a free course for women uh
00:01:33.079 in Turk and that's where I actually
00:01:35.360 first time um met Ruby and Ruby people
00:01:39.119 and that's also a place where I learned
00:01:40.920 Ruby and rails and after finishing the
00:01:43.200 curriculum there I also started to coach
00:01:45.680 there what I do until today and I
00:01:48.439 started to freelance uh first I was
00:01:50.360 doing workr website and then I was
00:01:51.960 trying to push it more and more towards
00:01:53.560 the rubby
00:01:55.159 world and I started course which was
00:01:57.840 called moms goat because when my my
00:02:00.000 daughter was born I felt like I would
00:02:02.039 like to um learn something visit a
00:02:05.159 course but for me but with my baby and
00:02:08.080 you have like tons of baby singing and
00:02:10.119 baby swinging and baby something but
00:02:12.319 there's not really a lot of options for
00:02:14.840 moms or parents who would like to learn
00:02:16.640 something for themselves but still have
00:02:19.000 the baby or little kid with them so I
00:02:22.000 decided to um teach mom's web
00:02:24.319 development and actually 30 to 50% of
00:02:28.200 people um brought their kids
00:02:30.480 and and were able to learn code so that
00:02:32.519 was really nice and then my son was born
00:02:35.760 and these are like two different babies
00:02:38.080 they just look the same and um I already
00:02:41.560 knew I want to do uh more rails and it
00:02:44.239 was a
00:02:45.159 bit bit um harder with the clients which
00:02:48.840 I had because for them like for um small
00:02:52.120 companies or entrepreneurs that wasn't
00:02:54.200 really the best fit and I also started
00:02:57.440 to teach at
00:02:58.599 Lon and and I got opportunity to work
00:03:01.319 for one company for um rail which had a
00:03:06.000 rails monit and after a year working for
00:03:08.360 them as a contractor I applied to GitHub
00:03:10.959 and um started work to work there in a
00:03:13.440 code scanning
00:03:14.920 team and we have a cat and so cats and
00:03:18.879 dog and pets are very popular I just
00:03:20.879 added a random picture of our cat yeah
00:03:24.640 but what I want to talk about today uh
00:03:27.159 it's the hiring phase how to make uh job
00:03:30.000 ads more attractive which is still
00:03:31.799 needed or how to attract diverse Talent
00:03:35.480 how to reduce the risk of hiring the
00:03:37.360 warong person during the interviews
00:03:39.120 these are all interesting topics but
00:03:41.400 what we will focus on today is the power
00:03:45.360 of kindness and support the value of
00:03:48.319 hands-on experience and also looking
00:03:51.480 into the
00:03:54.319 future so why I'm talking to you uh
00:03:58.079 today I join kab in March 2022 and I
00:04:01.079 work in a Cod scanning team and in this
00:04:03.560 talk I would like to bring the
00:04:05.040 experience which I had as a teacher and
00:04:07.680 Coach but also the experience which I
00:04:10.560 had as a new developer in a team a
00:04:12.799 career changer and I'll offer you what
00:04:15.120 works for me and what works for our team
00:04:17.880 but of course you're totally free and
00:04:20.120 invited to pick what works for you
00:04:22.160 personally and for you um as a part of
00:04:24.600 the team and
00:04:27.360 Company first I want to talk about how
00:04:30.120 to be kind and supportive and how you
00:04:32.680 can boost the speed of onboarding and
00:04:34.680 ramp him up with this
00:04:36.800 approach when I first came to GitHub to
00:04:39.600 my current team
00:04:41.880 um I had a onboarding
00:04:45.880 Budd
00:04:47.400 um that body was from a different team
00:04:50.680 and that person was responsible for
00:04:52.440 answering on Mark all my questions uh
00:04:55.039 about the company about I don't know how
00:04:57.400 to set up slag how to deal with email
00:05:00.440 uh whatever I would hoped but also
00:05:03.919 something else happened and that's when
00:05:06.240 random people started to write me and
00:05:08.840 was like hello I'm this and that I work
00:05:11.160 in your team or I work in the other team
00:05:13.320 and I just want to invite you for a
00:05:15.360 short chat and uh if you have time set
00:05:18.720 something up don't hesitate to ask any
00:05:20.520 questions and um feel free to meet and I
00:05:23.919 did and I met a lot of um people from my
00:05:26.560 team and from our wider team and it felt
00:05:29.199 so nice because even that the position
00:05:32.440 was fully remote I was able to make
00:05:35.120 those connections at the beginning and
00:05:37.400 that made it possible for me to um be
00:05:41.880 more open when I needed to ask for help
00:05:44.400 and also feel more free to just um
00:05:47.479 contact random people which I met before
00:05:50.319 and ask them about things so even if you
00:05:54.039 if you are uh in a team and you are
00:05:56.520 getting a new developer you can offer
00:05:58.639 them the support you can offer them a
00:06:00.440 chat and also if you the new developer
00:06:03.039 in the team you can also initiate this
00:06:05.759 and um ask people to have like a quick
00:06:08.960 chat if it's if you're in the office in
00:06:11.599 person if you're remote you can still
00:06:15.240 um set up a zoom
00:06:19.440 call I talked a bit about body so as I
00:06:22.560 mentioned I had um um General onboarding
00:06:25.479 buddy and then when I came to the team I
00:06:27.319 had my Budd uh which like team body and
00:06:30.319 that person was responsible for um
00:06:32.919 walking me through the codebase
00:06:34.880 explaining to me the business logic
00:06:36.800 which we were dealing with and also like
00:06:39.479 um answer any questions I would have
00:06:41.880 about our team
00:06:44.319 processes um so the more areer it's
00:06:47.919 great to have different bodes and
00:06:49.919 different mentors because it's better on
00:06:51.919 them that they are not it's not
00:06:54.280 necessarily a single person responsible
00:06:56.759 for answering all your questions um so
00:06:59.879 they have like still like more time and
00:07:02.879 um to work but also to support you and
00:07:06.319 you can get a bigger breath of
00:07:09.960 experience and advice if you can talk to
00:07:12.599 different people so I had my General on
00:07:15.240 boarding body I had my technical body
00:07:17.599 and then I also got a mentor with whom I
00:07:19.720 was like pairing pretty much weekly on a
00:07:22.960 on the task which usually on the task I
00:07:25.160 was working on sometimes if we didn't
00:07:27.280 have anything matching then I was
00:07:28.879 pairing with him on the task he was
00:07:30.759 working on and then I still had like a
00:07:32.960 wider
00:07:33.840 team uh which I could ask uh any
00:07:40.400 questions and today often we he hear
00:07:43.720 that it's way harder to on board people
00:07:46.800 or get uh new people to know the team
00:07:50.440 and and um on the code base when they're
00:07:53.199 remote GitHub is a remote first company
00:07:56.280 and what that means that my closest uh
00:07:58.400 colleagues are in
00:08:00.560 Munich Copenhagen UK and like all and
00:08:04.280 some are in the US so all around the
00:08:06.440 place and I didn't really feel this as a
00:08:10.280 disadvantage I have to say of course I
00:08:12.479 like I would like to you know have a
00:08:14.520 chat with them sometimes but I didn't
00:08:16.800 feel it was a disadvantage when um
00:08:19.520 getting on boarded and
00:08:21.400 started so what I ex really liked was
00:08:24.960 having more power over my cenda and I
00:08:27.759 think this also helped the mentor and
00:08:29.520 buddies because if everyone knows when
00:08:32.080 when you will meet it's kind of you
00:08:34.200 don't just invite their time all the day
00:08:37.320 long but you're more prepared as a new
00:08:40.240 person and they're also prepared they
00:08:41.880 have put that time aside for you so uh
00:08:45.959 usually we had a scheduled meetings and
00:08:48.600 also if we decided for ad hoc meetings
00:08:51.200 you can still write that person and ask
00:08:54.120 um do you have time in now or in five
00:08:56.800 minutes today that person can then say
00:08:59.360 what fits for them and while when you
00:09:02.480 compare this how this works often like
00:09:04.399 in office then you just walk to that
00:09:06.600 person and it's nice to have that
00:09:08.120 possibility but it's harder to find that
00:09:10.480 balance not just to you know um come to
00:09:13.800 them every 10 minutes when they're
00:09:15.680 trying to say so so these things we can
00:09:18.440 also do in person to kind of talk about
00:09:22.160 um scheduling or asking the person up
00:09:24.800 front when they would have time to help
00:09:26.440 us with
00:09:28.120 something so as a little summary of this
00:09:31.959 section what can you do as a new
00:09:34.600 developer you can get to know the team
00:09:36.680 and the vi company and you can also
00:09:39.079 initiate this process we also have like
00:09:41.560 these random chats either you can decide
00:09:44.279 like with a group within our
00:09:45.880 organization or with a whole GitHub and
00:09:48.120 once a month uh we meet some or like
00:09:50.760 it's voluntarily so if someone is
00:09:52.959 participating uh we meet some other
00:09:55.279 person uh which is randomly picked up
00:09:58.240 and we have this possibility to chat for
00:10:00.279 half an
00:10:01.120 hour then don't be afraid to ask and
00:10:04.160 also plan how you can tackle your
00:10:06.040 challenges and work so when you have
00:10:07.680 that time with your buddy and your
00:10:09.079 Mentor you can have already the
00:10:10.920 questions prepared the um um server
00:10:14.839 running or whatever you want to work
00:10:16.560 with and like that you can uh use the
00:10:19.680 best the time you two have together as a
00:10:23.240 senior developer you can reach out to
00:10:25.880 new people when they join and you can
00:10:28.279 also show it's okay to ask questions if
00:10:31.399 the new people see that you're also um
00:10:34.279 asking for example in a slack that it's
00:10:36.360 normal that the culture is said that
00:10:38.000 it's okay to ask if they see you when
00:10:40.399 they when you pair together and they see
00:10:42.320 you or hear you saying oh I actually
00:10:44.440 don't know I need to figure that out or
00:10:46.440 I need to research that it's super
00:10:48.800 valuable for
00:10:50.079 them and also because they feel it's
00:10:52.959 normal not know everything and they can
00:10:55.320 learn how you're um searching for
00:10:58.040 information
00:10:59.560 also if you can encourage balance
00:11:01.320 between helping and independent work
00:11:03.800 because you you you do want to support
00:11:06.240 them but you don't want that they come
00:11:08.680 with every uh every hurdle like every if
00:11:12.440 there's the first
00:11:14.399 question um so you want to get maybe
00:11:18.279 just asking the right question question
00:11:21.160 is a great way how to support this like
00:11:23.560 leading them to the next
00:11:25.480 step and then yeah just being ready to
00:11:29.079 help and do some pairing and make it
00:11:31.440 clear that it's okay to ask and lastly
00:11:34.120 as a company it's great if you can
00:11:36.760 acknowledge and make available the time
00:11:39.519 uh for mentoring and coaching and make
00:11:42.120 it part of work of the senior developers
00:11:45.839 officially um in our job descriptions we
00:11:48.600 have U the always the more senior roles
00:11:51.600 U have this part of their their job
00:11:53.720 description that is expected that they
00:11:55.560 will help the other people on the team
00:11:58.160 they will actively um pair with them and
00:12:02.000 lastly uh you can learn about your new
00:12:04.480 developers what do they need in order to
00:12:06.720 succeed so what can you provide them as
00:12:09.279 a company to set them up for
00:12:12.880 Success this was a message with which
00:12:15.519 one of my colleagues uh he was also my
00:12:17.440 mentor for a long time once wrote me
00:12:20.240 like rather unexpected to me and he
00:12:22.800 wrote I really really want you to
00:12:25.279 succeed on this and I'll will put more
00:12:27.000 of this time of my time to support you
00:12:29.000 you whenever you need and just knowing
00:12:31.680 this like feeling the support was very
00:12:35.720 very empowering and very super
00:12:41.839 nice so the second point is the value of
00:12:44.519 handson
00:12:46.920 experience at kidub we strive to ship
00:12:50.480 soon and ship often self contain small
00:12:54.199 changes before the goal was for new
00:12:57.120 hires to shift their change to
00:12:59.079 production in the first day now I think
00:13:01.399 it's more the first week after they um
00:13:03.920 join the team and it's
00:13:07.199 still feels like it's pretty early when
00:13:10.399 you are uh join like joining a new
00:13:12.800 company but it's great because usually
00:13:15.800 those changes are really small it could
00:13:17.639 be even so basic as changing the copy on
00:13:20.399 a button or something little but having
00:13:23.240 that experience of deploying where your
00:13:26.079 technical body does that with you so you
00:13:28.199 learn way more than just code about the
00:13:30.800 code and about the code base but you
00:13:32.639 learn the processes you learn how to how
00:13:35.399 to communicate during the deploy you
00:13:37.240 know where to look uh for the errors how
00:13:40.079 to read the dashboards so if it's
00:13:43.000 possible uh make them work on a real
00:13:45.480 code from the start because their P
00:13:48.240 should be reviewed by the senior te um
00:13:52.920 members of the team and also if you need
00:13:56.440 to support them during the deploy you
00:13:58.000 can do that to the get
00:13:59.399 together I know that there are different
00:14:02.279 companies with different strategies and
00:14:03.880 different opportunities so um because we
00:14:07.000 try to ship small self-contained changes
00:14:09.240 and we ship often this is more possible
00:14:12.279 than in some other
00:14:13.959 settings we also as a team look up for
00:14:17.360 so-called good first issues so if we
00:14:19.959 stumble upon a little problem or little
00:14:22.000 fixes which is um not critical and not
00:14:24.959 urgent it's small and easy to implement
00:14:27.399 we sometimes open the issue and label it
00:14:29.880 as a good first issue and we keep it
00:14:32.279 there we keep it there for the new
00:14:34.360 person when they'll come so they can
00:14:36.920 pick up one of these first issues to
00:14:38.880 start with or it's also used by other
00:14:41.480 team members who start to work in a
00:14:43.560 different part of the code Bas so maybe
00:14:45.600 if it's a service with which I never
00:14:48.000 worked before I can start by picking up
00:14:50.519 one of these good first
00:14:55.800 issues I truly believe that pairing was
00:14:58.720 was uh one of the strong factors which
00:15:01.120 contributed to me feeling really um
00:15:03.480 connected with my team and and uh
00:15:06.240 learning fast about our codebase and I
00:15:10.040 really like to drive often so if this is
00:15:13.160 also you you can propose that to your
00:15:16.000 mentor and if you're a mentor you can
00:15:18.880 also suggest that to your mentee because
00:15:22.160 um if they drive they learn a lot it's
00:15:25.959 also good to swap every now and then
00:15:27.880 because they pick up not just how you
00:15:30.399 code but they also see what shortcut you
00:15:33.519 use how you search for things how you
00:15:36.120 test things like how do you arrange the
00:15:38.319 windows and all these little details
00:15:40.240 which at the end can make them way more
00:15:42.759 productive and they're often not
00:15:46.240 communicated
00:15:47.920 um
00:15:49.959 yes you also they also learn how you
00:15:53.160 think about the problems when you pair
00:15:55.399 with them and uh we often paired I like
00:15:59.000 to pair on my own tasks but sometimes I
00:16:02.079 pair it also on other people's tasks
00:16:04.560 just to see what they're working on and
00:16:06.759 like expanding my
00:16:08.480 knowledge of a feature or particular
00:16:11.120 area of the
00:16:14.279 code and then uh for the next new
00:16:18.160 developers I find it's really important
00:16:20.279 to focus to focus on one step in a time
00:16:24.120 and don't get overwhelmed by trying to
00:16:26.240 understand everything from the scratch
00:16:27.759 especially in a big companies there are
00:16:30.079 things I ignore until today and I'm
00:16:32.880 there almost two years um because
00:16:37.199 there's just so much going on and it's
00:16:39.839 okay to give yourself time and also to
00:16:42.959 know that it's okay to ask questions so
00:16:46.319 first focus on the task you have at hand
00:16:49.000 and then slowly
00:16:50.800 expand when you feel ready and for the
00:16:53.920 mentors this goes the same way try not
00:16:56.880 to overwhelm them but give them them
00:16:58.759 task with which they can succeed and
00:17:01.519 when you see that they're ready you can
00:17:03.600 like make it more harder or more broader
00:17:06.439 and then give them support they
00:17:09.919 need I really like many how many uh uses
00:17:14.600 the PRS have so usually we think about
00:17:17.439 PRS as a uh yeah way to review the code
00:17:21.240 which will go to production and that's
00:17:23.079 true and that stays but it can be way
00:17:25.640 more than
00:17:26.799 this you can ask your new developers to
00:17:30.720 review your code so they can learn from
00:17:33.200 it and you can encourage them that they
00:17:35.280 can ask the questions on the pr and you
00:17:37.320 can you can use the PRS also as an
00:17:39.520 education
00:17:41.240 tool um you can even ask if there are
00:17:44.160 some suggestions on on the PRS if you
00:17:47.480 are reviewing there just be nice and um
00:17:51.039 offer the suggestion but know where they
00:17:53.240 are when they're standing and you can
00:17:54.919 still use that comment to explain some
00:17:57.520 of the things they may have
00:17:59.600 missed
00:18:01.440 and uh yeah if that works for you and
00:18:04.159 your company it's great if they can
00:18:06.000 start with a small self contained PR
00:18:09.679 which are easy to review test and
00:18:13.360 understand
00:18:15.559 um and uh lastly you can also do PR
00:18:20.039 walkthroughs during the pairing session
00:18:22.720 if you want to ask them for a review U
00:18:25.200 that happened for me too from my
00:18:26.679 colleague he was like yeah uh we can
00:18:28.640 walk through this PR and so I got the pr
00:18:31.799 explained and then I still could review
00:18:33.720 it and like that I understood um even
00:18:36.799 before the review what was going on and
00:18:39.039 I had the opportunity to ask
00:18:43.600 questions and then you probably know
00:18:46.080 that but coding is not just about the
00:18:48.120 coding so slowly making them more
00:18:51.440 independent and including them in the
00:18:53.760 process of planning of the project and
00:18:56.360 planning of their own development
00:18:59.440 um make them see how you manage the task
00:19:02.880 how you manage the compan priorities and
00:19:06.039 uh guide them through
00:19:08.080 that get answers um and the support you
00:19:12.000 need as a new developer from your
00:19:14.039 mentors and
00:19:17.200 colleagues and this is another quote
00:19:19.520 from one of my colleagues and she said I
00:19:22.720 like to think that my time is a shared
00:19:25.039 resource of the team and so is everyone
00:19:27.799 else's
00:19:28.960 so if I'm asking for help if asking for
00:19:31.720 help will free me to work on the next
00:19:33.760 thing sooner it's also helping the
00:19:36.440 team and when we talked about this I
00:19:38.840 found that very liberating because
00:19:40.840 sometimes you feel like oh yeah maybe I
00:19:42.520 should know this already and I don't
00:19:44.520 want to ask because I want to I feel
00:19:46.640 like I should figure that out by myself
00:19:49.400 but at some point um yeah if you want to
00:19:52.480 help your team then asking for help is
00:19:55.919 actually also helping them
00:20:01.360 so what can you do as a new developer
00:20:04.559 you can put comments and questions on
00:20:06.559 your PR when you put it up to explain
00:20:09.559 and also if you're reviewing someone
00:20:11.280 else's PR you can ask them about why
00:20:13.840 they did that or why is something
00:20:16.600 needed you can check the PRS of your
00:20:19.280 more senior colleagues and don't be
00:20:21.720 afraid to ask that's how you
00:20:24.200 learn as a senior think about PRS as a
00:20:27.919 teacher in material and you can also
00:20:30.120 Point them to an interesting resource or
00:20:32.520 task they could pick up you can prepare
00:20:35.440 small selfcontained task and uh you can
00:20:39.200 delegate them to your new
00:20:41.240 developers you can walk them through
00:20:43.200 your PRS and you can ask for reviews and
00:20:46.320 encourage them to ask questions on your
00:20:48.600 own PR and keep your mind open maybe you
00:20:52.360 will get a great suggestions from that
00:20:54.200 new person because they know something
00:20:56.240 more about the library you're using
00:20:58.679 or they're coming from a different team
00:21:01.320 and lastly as a company um encourage
00:21:04.679 pairing and make processes transparent
00:21:07.480 to include the new developers as much as
00:21:09.880 it makes
00:21:11.720 sense and the last part of this talk is
00:21:14.840 about looking into the
00:21:17.720 future over time as a new developer and
00:21:21.520 also as a mentor you want uh that they
00:21:24.080 in uh increase the independence and the
00:21:27.159 speed that's usually how we develop we
00:21:29.960 just get more things done
00:21:32.400 faster uh but you could also take into
00:21:35.000 account their background and build on
00:21:37.120 those strengths make them succeed so
00:21:40.039 when I started in my team because I was
00:21:42.640 hired and I came as a rails developer um
00:21:45.480 I was working mostly on a rails tasks
00:21:48.159 until I felt really comfortable to move
00:21:50.480 forward because we have another service
00:21:52.799 which was in go which was for me totally
00:21:55.039 new um framework and language and and so
00:21:58.400 as a career changer I first got the
00:22:00.600 opportunity to feel really well uh with
00:22:03.520 the things I knew and just when I was
00:22:05.520 ready I started with the next
00:22:10.400 language I found oneon-one super
00:22:12.960 valuable and I was super lucky to have
00:22:15.279 like great uh managers in my
00:22:19.279 team and it's great to understand what
00:22:21.720 the developer needs to succeed and you
00:22:24.039 as the new developer you can communicate
00:22:26.039 what it is you would like to see or what
00:22:28.279 support would you like to uh have and
00:22:31.559 your manager can facilitate that they
00:22:34.679 know more about the opportunities they
00:22:36.480 know more about the people they can talk
00:22:38.120 with the other developers and ask them
00:22:40.120 hey who would like um yeah to pair with
00:22:43.640 um you on this or
00:22:46.120 that as a manager uh you should also
00:22:49.240 then see and ask what they're struggling
00:22:51.559 with and finding help ways help to help
00:22:54.200 them find their interest because often
00:22:57.480 um they different things um they can
00:23:01.080 work
00:23:02.039 on and um actively presenting
00:23:05.320 opportunities to learn and as a new
00:23:07.520 developer again you can say oh I would
00:23:09.640 really want to learn about data so your
00:23:12.760 manager if they know it and they know
00:23:15.320 that some of the project which you as a
00:23:17.840 team will work on have something with
00:23:19.679 data they can point you
00:23:22.320 there and find a way with your manager
00:23:25.120 because what worked with one manager
00:23:26.880 doesn't necessarily work with the other
00:23:29.320 so if you get a new manager um it's
00:23:32.279 great to be inspired by what worked
00:23:34.840 before but you pretty much need to start
00:23:37.720 from the scratch and Find Your Way find
00:23:40.720 a way how they can uh support you the
00:23:44.159 best bring questions and topics and
00:23:47.600 opportunities to look for like if you
00:23:49.480 prepare for your one-on-one meetings you
00:23:51.279 can get way more out of
00:23:54.400 them yeah and that's it so last slide in
00:23:59.080 this part is about career lettera or
00:24:02.440 progressing in your career if
00:24:05.159 expectations are clearly set it's way
00:24:07.919 easier to see when one is so you as a
00:24:11.600 new developer don't be afraid to ask
00:24:14.480 what is expected from me now in a month
00:24:17.600 in a three months in a half a year or a
00:24:20.159 year how am I doing in my current role
00:24:23.480 what are the things you would like to
00:24:24.880 see from
00:24:25.960 me and as a senior uh or manager you can
00:24:30.760 also make this clear to them like you
00:24:33.360 can give them
00:24:34.559 feedback um and as a new developer don't
00:24:38.159 be afraid to ask your manager about
00:24:40.120 these things and don't be afraid to ask
00:24:42.279 colleagues about the feedbacks in many
00:24:44.399 big companies you have these feedback
00:24:46.360 rounds which are usually once in a half
00:24:49.520 a year or once in a year and they're
00:24:51.559 great but often they're not that timely
00:24:55.279 so you can also ask just for for a very
00:24:58.200 short feedback after a project or after
00:25:01.120 something you worked uh with on with
00:25:05.039 some of your colleagues and yeah just to
00:25:08.279 see uh what they liked what you should
00:25:10.600 continue doing and what's the next step
00:25:13.039 for
00:25:16.240 you another thing which one of my
00:25:18.520 managers now directors often used to was
00:25:21.840 Choose Your Own Adventure and it was
00:25:24.399 very surprising and positively
00:25:26.279 surprising to me that as a one of the
00:25:28.360 newest team members I was able to say
00:25:30.480 what I would like to work on right and
00:25:33.240 this is super empowering of course it
00:25:35.039 has to be something from what the team
00:25:38.279 has to work on but if you have a de
00:25:40.919 bigger team if you have different tasks
00:25:43.080 you can also um include uh your Junior
00:25:46.960 developers in that process and ask them
00:25:49.440 what they'll like to work on what's
00:25:51.240 their
00:25:52.919 preference so what could you do as a new
00:25:56.240 developer make sure that that you
00:25:58.320 understand the expectations your team
00:26:00.279 and your manager has on you also prepare
00:26:04.080 for feedback and review conversations
00:26:07.440 upfront it's great if you can keep a
00:26:09.600 document where you track your work and
00:26:11.480 your goals and think about your next
00:26:13.360 steps because it it just simplifies the
00:26:15.960 work a lot I use to copy some of the um
00:26:20.080 issues or pull requests I work on and
00:26:23.120 then write uh just the short ballot
00:26:25.760 points of what was interesting there
00:26:27.480 what did I learn um what did I do and
00:26:30.480 Julie events she calls this a break
00:26:32.440 document she has a great um article
00:26:36.320 block and also don't be afraid to
00:26:38.720 express where your interests lie and
00:26:40.799 what you would like to work on as a
00:26:43.480 senior developer you can suggest the
00:26:45.919 opportunities for the new team member or
00:26:48.200 for the junior developer because you
00:26:49.799 have better overview of the project you
00:26:52.520 know more uh you can see where their
00:26:55.520 skills are and what could be their next
00:26:57.360 step
00:26:59.360 also share those Unwritten rules and
00:27:01.880 information because those make it so
00:27:04.480 much more valuable it's something which
00:27:06.720 the new person often doesn't know about
00:27:08.960 so if you can do that you'll help them
00:27:11.279 immensely and advocate for them um in a
00:27:16.039 group of uh in a team or outside if they
00:27:20.840 do something nice just give them credit
00:27:23.039 and tell the other
00:27:24.600 people and give them time to shine
00:27:28.720 as a company you can make it clear what
00:27:31.279 is expected from your developers on
00:27:33.679 different levels how they progress in
00:27:35.399 their career and check with them
00:27:37.440 regularly on how they're
00:27:39.559 doing uh if they're Meeting those
00:27:41.960 expectations and what they feel they
00:27:43.880 would need to meet those expectations as
00:27:47.080 a
00:27:48.360 support So as a
00:27:51.760 summary I would love for you to think
00:27:54.919 about how the power of kindness and
00:27:56.880 support helps you as a new developer and
00:28:00.720 you as a senior developer to support the
00:28:02.840 new ones the value of the hands-on
00:28:05.600 experience and how looking into the
00:28:07.600 future looking forward can make this
00:28:09.919 journey more
00:28:11.799 agreeable and I would also love to stay
00:28:14.840 in touch with you even though we are
00:28:16.840 sharing a slack so I think we have
00:28:20.039 already this possibility but if you
00:28:21.760 would like to connect somewhere else I'm
00:28:23.679 super happy to do
00:28:25.600 that and my question would be now my one
00:28:28.880 question would be what would be the one
00:28:31.720 thing you would like to try next time
00:28:35.000 and if you can think about that and
00:28:36.760 write that in the chat that would be
00:28:43.399 great and yes we have the um some
00:28:47.880 documents in the chat the things I was
00:28:51.240 um talking about that's perfect
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