Ask HN: How do you define a junior developer?

Re:Ask HN: How do you define a junior developer? by dccoolgai on Thursday September 22, 2016 @12:40PM (#12558074)

Notice I didn't say "Negative -> Positive". It says "Junior -> Senior". Thinking about it further, I don't think it's possible to properly get to the second state (tradeoff-understanding) without going through the first (win-seeking) at some point in your career... in fact, when I'm hiring Junior devs I select for win-seeking behavior. "Tradeoff-understanding" is more of a philosophical disposition that one (IMHO the best engineers) arrives at later. "Win-seeking" is kind of related to the "I'm always right" point: A junior will say "Of course this is the best possible thing to do and there are no drawbacks" where a senior will say "Wait a sec - this might be worth doing, but let's understand what we're changing or giving up".

So, in a sense yeah - the Senior is still "looking for a win", so-to-speak but in a deeper zen-state where they realize "There are no wins: only tradeoffs".

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Re:Ask HN: How do you define a junior developer? by Tloewald on Thursday September 22, 2016 @12:43PM (#12558115)

I think the "looks for wins" attribute is just a desireable trait period (like "tries to write good code"), but the ability to weigh trade offs comes with experience and changes how one looks for wins.

In the end, you're making a smart vs. wise distinction, and the two are neither independent nor opposed.

Perhaps fixes the problem in front of them vs. thinks about the problem in context (with the context getting bigger and hairier with more experience).

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Re:Ask HN: How do you define a junior developer? by rocket69 on Thursday September 22, 2016 @03:31PM (#12559578)

No.

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