How Junior Engineers can Improve Quickly

3 ways to accelerate your growth as a junior frontend developer

A lot of people say frontend development is a complicated world and involves many different technologies. Some juniors find it hard to keep up and don’t know how to improve. I have been there before and these were the 3 things I’ve done to help me improve quickly and make sure I could contribute more as early as possible.

Reading Source Code

English wasn’t my first language so I tried to do a lot of reading to improve my sentence structures and expand my vocabulary. I did the same for coding by reading how other people wrote their codes. By reading, you could learn how other experienced developers chose coding patterns, how they structured the projects, and how the system was built. Source code doesn’t necessarily mean the codes for open-source libraries but just any codes that were written before you. Reading it beforehand also helps you approach your next problem from different angles with more insights into the codebase.

Reading Error Codes

To be a good software engineer, having a good debugging skill is a must. You need to know when things go wrong, why they go wrong, and how to solve them. One of the ways to improve your debugging skill is to actually read the error codes when the error occurs. Many juniors would just copy paste to Google and see if other people had the same problem before. It would be a good learning experience if you actually try to read the error codes, trade the codes, and see why it gives you the errors. It gives you a chance to do some critical thinking and out your troubleshooting skills to test. No matter what role you have, you will need this problem solving skill.

Code Reviews

You can be two different roles when participating in code review. One is when you submit a pull request and request others to review your codes. You can learn how senior engineer give constructive feedbacks and actionable items when they comment on your codes. It is also your time to develop your communication skill if you would like to ask them to clarify what they mean or exchange your thinking process for this pull request. You can also take the other side by reading and giving comments to other people’s pull requests. Because pull request usually solves one specific task, it’s easier for you to track what they have changed and why. I have written a post about code review here if you’d like to know more about it.

By consistently applying these three strategies, junior software engineers can significantly accelerate their learning curve and make a meaningful impact on their teams. The skills you have gained by doing these are not only needed in junior but also principal engineer. These skills will make you a better software engineer and ensure you can continue providing values to your team.