As a manager of devs, the times I've seen someone be much more productive than usual have all been where they:
- Understood the requirements. Not just in a specific way, but also by having enough context to know what's likely to come ahead.
- Already have the tools familiarised. So the right languages are in their brain-cache, the CI/CD is familiar, and there's little need to read up on any new frameworks.
- Have already done something similar in the past. I work in the financial space, and the sheer number of wheel reinventions is mind boggling. Feed handlers, orderbooks, decision logic, aggregators, wire protocols. Someone who's been through the grinder a couple of times will know what the fixed points are and what you can change.
All of these point towards experience not simply in time but also in terms of projects done.
I've also come across a handful of people who were inexperienced but thought they could solve all the same problems without the benefit of having seen how others have done it, and it's been a disaster each time. Sometimes these people are hailed as heroes, because management thinks it's somehow to their credit that their Rube Goldberg machine seems to work.
The one or two really good junior staff who "get it" have tended to be the humble personality type. They don't bite off more than they can chew, but they eventually eat the whole cake.
- Understood the requirements. Not just in a specific way, but also by having enough context to know what's likely to come ahead.
- Already have the tools familiarised. So the right languages are in their brain-cache, the CI/CD is familiar, and there's little need to read up on any new frameworks.
- Have already done something similar in the past. I work in the financial space, and the sheer number of wheel reinventions is mind boggling. Feed handlers, orderbooks, decision logic, aggregators, wire protocols. Someone who's been through the grinder a couple of times will know what the fixed points are and what you can change.
All of these point towards experience not simply in time but also in terms of projects done.
I've also come across a handful of people who were inexperienced but thought they could solve all the same problems without the benefit of having seen how others have done it, and it's been a disaster each time. Sometimes these people are hailed as heroes, because management thinks it's somehow to their credit that their Rube Goldberg machine seems to work.
The one or two really good junior staff who "get it" have tended to be the humble personality type. They don't bite off more than they can chew, but they eventually eat the whole cake.