Why You Need to Work With Less Experienced Engineers
Learn how working with less experienced team members can help you grow. It's a chance to improve your skills and become a better leader.
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I have always enjoyed collaborating with senior engineers. Sometimes, experienced engineers might be at the same level. But, they'd have greater familiarity with the company or team due to years of experience.
Collaborating with seniors is beneficial as they set excellent examples of what a great software engineer should be.
But, challenges arise when you only work with experienced engineers. And, never working with those less experienced than yourself.
Here’s why…
You start depending on seniors/experienced engineers without realizing it.
You leave the meaty work to them due to a lack of self-confidence.
You don’t challenge their ideas.
You become less visible in the team.
Let’s go through the details of each point.
You start depending on them without realizing it
It's often tempting to lean on senior or experienced colleagues for problem-solving. Here’s why:
If you're stumped, you tend to turn to the 'genius' for answers.
This reliance can diminish your trust in your judgment and problem-solving skills.
The trick is that you only recognize your heavy reliance on them when you collaborate with less experienced team members.
You leave the meaty work to them due to a lack of self-confidence
I often found myself avoiding tasks that intimidated me due to their size or complexity, usually passing them to more experienced colleagues.
Here are the problems with that:
Sometimes, people skip hard tasks and let more experienced people do them. This is common but can stop your learning.
Avoiding these tasks means not challenging yourself.
When you always give difficult work to others, you miss the chance to get better at your job.
Experienced workers often help, but if you rely on them too much, you won't learn to solve problems yourself.
They find solutions quickly because they have a lot of experience. This is something you can learn too if you work more independently.
You don’t challenge their ideas
When you work with experienced engineers, it's common to admire them and aspire to be like them. You may admire their thought process and how they seem to 'know everything'.
But this perception is misleading. No one knows everything and experienced engineers do make mistakes.
Remember this: it's not just juniors or less experienced engineers who make mistakes; even the most seasoned professionals do.
This is why it's crucial to:
Speak up and challenge their ideas if something seems missing or overlooked.
Avoid falling into the 'consensus trap' where you simply agree with others 'because they know better'.
Be proactive, engage in discussions, and pay close attention.
In the past, I was quite the opposite. In most meetings, I remained a passive participant, seldom challenging anyone.
More often than not, I kept my thoughts to myself, only to later hear someone else express the same points I had considered.
Imagine how much faster I would have grown if I had applied these lessons early in my career. But it's better late than never. So, start doing this now!
You become less visible in the team
When the stars of the team shine brightly, you may find yourself overshadowed by their light. If your goal is to emulate their success, observe and learn from them.
You'll notice that the standout team members often share several key traits:
Proactivity
A balance of independence and excellent teamwork
A helpful nature
Integrity
Goal orientation
Leadership qualities
Aim to emulate these characteristics. Work alongside them, not merely for them. Instead of envying them or feeling inferior, believe that you can one day reach their level.
It's important not to compete with them. Focus on surpassing your past self, striving for personal improvement.
Benefits of working more with less experienced engineers
I have been working with less experienced engineers for almost a year now. It had a great impact on my growth and made a significant change in the way I work.
Here’s what I noticed going better…
Having the chance to voice up: I noticed myself becoming more confident to speak up in meetings and challenge others’ ideas.
Having the chance to show off your technical skills: You get the chance to express your style to the code, the design, the testing, and every technical aspect of the projects.
Having the chance to show off your soft skills: You’ll be able to present your ideas and thoughts more clearly, jumping on chances that you would previously leave to more senior people.
Having a chance to show off your leadership skills: You get the chance to lead a few projects, and work alone on some. This is a great opportunity to discover your ability to fully and independently work on something from start to delivery.
You become more visible in the team: As you build more credit, solve more problems, challenge, and propose your ideas, you become a more reliable and ‘go-to’ person in the team.
You get a chance to be a mentor: This is great because it helps you grow by teaching others and helping them out in their growth journey.
Conclusion
The primary aim of balancing working with different expertise is to:
Establish your credibility.
Evolve into an 'experienced' or 'go-to' person within your team.
This doesn't mean you should avoid working with senior members. On the contrary, I still highly value collaborating with skilled and intelligent engineers.
The key actions here are to:
Step out of your comfort zone.
Challenge your usual methods.
Allow your star to shine.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, let me know by hitting the like button ❤️ to help others find it on Substack, and share it to spread the love!
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100+ resources to become a great engineering leaderThat’s it, friends, talk next week 👋
— Basma
A new voice in the room forces you to put into words what was left unspoken.
And that's an exercise to audit if it is still the right approach.
If it is, then teaching others you learn it twice.
Really good points of why it is important to work with a mix of people. The other way round is also true. As a leader, one has to ensure people don't rely on them too much. They should make themselves redundant. That is when leaders excel.
Thanks for sharing my article.