100% Agreed. Just say what you think and why. The Socratic stuff works really well if you're making up a pretend conversation where you get to write both parts,

100% Agreed. Just say what you think and why. The Socratic stuff works really well if you're making up a pretend conversation where you get to write both parts, and every question gets the perfect answer, and it all gets to ends with perfect enlightenment. In the real world, your questions probably suck, and the answers probably suck more. Nothing is more obnoxious than enduring someone badly doing "the socratic method" on you. The main problem with junior engineers is that they have narrow views of the world. Software is complex. Being experienced, is mostly about earning hard won scars through mistakes, missteps, and rewrites. It's tough to convey the scope of impact by just asking them questions. It's much more guiding to just give them what they don't yet have! I'd much prefer: "Oh, man, so this looks like it shouldn't matter, but let me tell you how I once took down prod for 3 hours by doing this same thing. I can show you how it can fail in this really subtle way". to: "what is the nature of being?"