9 ms·

It's a lot easier for me to observe a junior struggling, spinning their wheels, and give corrective feedback in the office. I don't know the remote equivalent o

It's a lot easier for me to observe a junior struggling, spinning their wheels, and give corrective feedback in the office. I don't know the remote equivalent of glancing at their screen and body language while I get up for a bathroom break.

mcv 4y ago
Listen to what they say during the daily team meeting, and occasionally ask by chat how they're doing. It's true that it has to be a bit more explicit, and it may be a bit slower, but it's far from impossible.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  It's really this simple. Junior employees need to be more actively managed than senior employees. They literally do not know what they're doing, that's what makes them junior. Remote or local, they need more oversight to help them learn and become productive.
  - kevinmchugh 4y ago
    Can you give me advice on how to provide oversight in a way that's not demoralizing, infuriating, patronizing? I found working with juniors _fun_ and rewarding in person. Remote i have hated it and don't think I've been good at it
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      One thing that has worked for me in the past is to do some regularly scheduled pair programming. When I'm driving I narrate my thought process and encourage questions. They get to see things and when I make a little typo and they can catch it, not only does it save me a few seconds but it makes them feel GREAT that they helped the senior dev. Making this highly interactive and the senior driving FIRST makes it still "fun" when the junior is in the driver's seat. One of the biggest skills you're helping a junior to learn is how to break apart a big task into small, workable components. Maybe they are assigned a user story, but that user story is going to need multiple functions written, or something like that. So you might start with pseudo-coding or creating the interfaces together, talk high level about how a particular method should work, and then let them do that part by themself. "Let me know if you get stuck or done with that and then let's do a little informal code review." Beyond that it's the normal management stuff of compliment sandwich on negative feedback, etc. The normal things you do to build and maintain rapport with coworkers.
      - Consultant32452 4y ago
        Oh, another thing I find helpful is to make it clear up front what I'm doing and why. I don't just narrate what I'm literally doing in the programming, I narrate why we're doing this at the meta level and what the expectations are. I also make it clear that as they get more comfortable there will be less oversight.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  That's one point of contact per day. I was able to continuously be aware of anyone struggling before. I can't continuously ping them throughout the day. Even 4 times a day seems much too high contact to not be patronizing, and that still leaves them to stew for up to two hours at a time

mcv 4y ago

Listen to what they say during the daily team meeting, and occasionally ask by chat how they're doing. It's true that it has to be a bit more explicit, and it may be a bit slower, but it's far from impossible.

Consultant32452 4y ago
It's really this simple. Junior employees need to be more actively managed than senior employees. They literally do not know what they're doing, that's what makes them junior. Remote or local, they need more oversight to help them learn and become productive.
- kevinmchugh 4y ago
  Can you give me advice on how to provide oversight in a way that's not demoralizing, infuriating, patronizing? I found working with juniors _fun_ and rewarding in person. Remote i have hated it and don't think I've been good at it
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    One thing that has worked for me in the past is to do some regularly scheduled pair programming. When I'm driving I narrate my thought process and encourage questions. They get to see things and when I make a little typo and they can catch it, not only does it save me a few seconds but it makes them feel GREAT that they helped the senior dev. Making this highly interactive and the senior driving FIRST makes it still "fun" when the junior is in the driver's seat. One of the biggest skills you're helping a junior to learn is how to break apart a big task into small, workable components. Maybe they are assigned a user story, but that user story is going to need multiple functions written, or something like that. So you might start with pseudo-coding or creating the interfaces together, talk high level about how a particular method should work, and then let them do that part by themself. "Let me know if you get stuck or done with that and then let's do a little informal code review." Beyond that it's the normal management stuff of compliment sandwich on negative feedback, etc. The normal things you do to build and maintain rapport with coworkers.
    - Consultant32452 4y ago
      Oh, another thing I find helpful is to make it clear up front what I'm doing and why. I don't just narrate what I'm literally doing in the programming, I narrate why we're doing this at the meta level and what the expectations are. I also make it clear that as they get more comfortable there will be less oversight.
kevinmchugh 4y ago
That's one point of contact per day. I was able to continuously be aware of anyone struggling before. I can't continuously ping them throughout the day. Even 4 times a day seems much too high contact to not be patronizing, and that still leaves them to stew for up to two hours at a time