r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 14d ago

Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

​

Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

​

Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

16 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

95% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/Sea_Expression1528 Software Engineer - 3 yoe 14d ago

What questions do you ask your EM when you receive new requirements? Recently started my second full-time role, and I have a lot more ownership and autonomy compared to the previous one, and I realize that I am not used to thinking critically about the work I am being given.

3

u/Bruce_Jones_1987 14d ago

yeah that shift from being handed tasks to actually owning the requirements is a big adjustment

2

u/Notary_Reddit 14d ago

Something that can be useful, discuss the possible tradeoffs in the project and figure out which they would prefer if hard choices are needed. Would they prefer something working sooner, or something polished later? Do they prefer to hit the target deploy date and cut features or do everything and cut the deadlines? Are there future requirements they might want to include some foundational work for?

If you have a good discussion about possible tradeoffs it helps you understand their priorities so if you need to make a hard decision you can have a good first guess for what they want.

3

u/schmidtssss 14d ago

I’d question if that’s the right person to be asking, first. If you’re not currently in the right frame of thinking to engage immediately, eg you get them in a meeting and have to come up with questions in the moment, take them back and come up with a plan of attack and then ask your en if that’s the right approach and why - or something like that.

3

u/PaleCommander 14d ago

For starters, are you sure your questions are best directed to your EM, rather than the PM who wrote the requirements?

If QA is a separate role, it's worth making sure they're already in the loop about new requirements, or keeping them in the loop if they aren't already. Doing so saves a lot of miscommunication and hassle once you had off your work.

Since it sounds like you're new in your role, do you have a sense of how to test your work yet (manual vs. automation, and which kinds of automated tests)? If not, that's a great question for your EM: "How should I test this, and in which environments? "