Re:Ask HN: How do you define a junior developer?
by siquick on Thursday September 22, 2016 @10:25PM
(#12561903)
"At big companies, it's more important to not be wrong than to be right. This is not conducive to the sort of mistake-based learning that really advances people. "Move slow and don't break anything!" is what the corporation wants, whether or not they phrase it that way."
This is a perfect summary of working at corporations
So junior engineers aren't given responsibility, because they might break something.
I was lucky. The first time I was given real responsibility, I broke something badly (which turned out to be an actual OS bug, but that's another story). It was a learning experience - in large part, because I had to learn why things broke in production, but not in development. That lesson sticks with me to this day, 20+ years later.