Ask HN: How do YOU define a junior developer? - devcheese
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Nadya
Doesn't know how to debug. Doesn't know why trivial bugs happen.

Examples for front-end dev (CSS/HTML/JS)

Uncleared float causing a collapse, collapsing margins, poor selector priority
or confused about why X has priority over Y. Div soup structure with
unnecessary divs/floats to attain desired layout. Off-by-one errors in
Javascript (without being able to identify it) or not being able to identify
when they are out-of-scope or what `this` is referencing.

Once they stop making silly mistakes they become a `developer'` At which point
the kinds of mistakes they are making are less trivial and occasionally
overlap with problems `senior developer` have. But they can confidently debug
and generally solve their own problems so require less attention from other
devs.

~~~
hex13
Everybody is junior developer sometimes.

Everybody sometimes makes stupid bugs and doesn't see why. Everybody sometimes
doesn't know obvious things. Everybody is beginner sometimes. I think that
even when senior programmer learns new approach, new project, new language,
new paradigm, new tool etc. is as confused as beginner.

I think senior/middle/junior are just hierarchy markers to:

\- define your salary

\- define your responsibilities in project/company

\- boost your ego (senior), or keep you to stay humble (junior)

"At which point the kinds of mistakes they are making are less trivial and
occasionally overlap with problems `senior developer` have."

I don't know what you mean. I think every developer in a team is often
experiencing similar problems. For example architecture, code quality. You
could say that only seniors must be thinking about this. But this is not true,
because when there is spaghetti code in project - whole team has this problem.
Even junior developer has to deal with spaghetti code (for example), even if
he is not experienced enough to write clean code (or even he made this code
himself xD).

Besides the biggest problems in development are often not technical ones but
more people/management related ones. It doesn't really matter if developers
are good or bad, if the project or team is poor managed, or if there are some
communication issues.

------
snap12789
Someone who values learning over dominance; the more you learn, the more
junior you'll feel.

~~~
shogun21
Learning is a sign of growth, not a sign of weakness.

If a senior developer remains stagnant, they'll quickly fall behind.

------
danielvf
Junior developer: Does not define tasks, needs occasional help completing
programming tasks.

------
tayler2412
Style Guides, UI Blocks and how they bill for their hours.

