Andrei Neagoie has a really popular article called Don't be a Junior Developer. In the article he argues that labeling yourself as "junior" when you're starting out is a big mistake, specially if you're looking for that first job. He writes:

"When you do that, this is what recruiters and companies see: “Hi, I’m desperately looking to get hired as a developer. I’m still new at this, but can you please please please place a bet on me and hope that I turn out to be an asset and not a liability for your company. Oh, and I’m also going to need a lot of help from your staff for the first 6 months!”

Even though the article's main purpose is to sell you his course The Complete Junior to Senior Developer, I agree with with the quoted sentiment 110%, but I'm gonna take this a little further and say that it's not just enough to avoid labeling yourself a junior. You should also avoid letting others put you in that box. I'm not talking about the unfortunate situation of getting that as a literal job title in a company. I'm talking more about other peers in the industry putting you in that box.

This can be tricky. Obviously, there will always be people that know more than you. We should always seek out the "smartest person in the room" to learn from. However this doesn't mean that you won't ever know what they know. This doesn't mean that the apprentice can never become the master. Also, not everyone that "knows more than you" can be, or should be, your mentor.

So when your peers put you in the junior box, you're going to have a hard time getting out of that box. You're going to have to almost literally fight your way out of that box. "You're just learning,", they'll say. "You don't have experience with real codebases that are in production", they'll retort and cackle. In their eyes you will always be a junior because you don't have a job. The problem with this is that having a job or not doesn't have anything to do with your skills and capability.

Get out of the junior box as soon as you can. Don't get "pigeonholed" in any box really, not even the "intermediate developer" box because that will always be junior to someone.

Mar 10 2021 by Jay Cruz

junior career