Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jayar95 2676 days ago
To be fair, I see junior devs struggle with all build tools.
1 comments

This is true, and further to this point, I don't think there is or should be any crossover between 'junior' and 'configuring build pipelines'. To me that's by definition a task for a senior Engineer.

Put another way, if you have a skillset that includes configuring and/or maintaining non-trivial build pipelines, you're not a junior Engineer any more.

Which is why as a Senior Engineer, some of the best productivity you can build for your team is to be able tell a Junior when starting a new application, "clone this template, npm start to debug it, it uses Typescript, you'll learn it as you work with it I promise, just let me know when you need help with something complex, and I'll be here to help you through all your PRs". (Or F5 to start in something like Visual Studio, depending on familiarity levels of Juniors you are trying to work with.)

Junior developers are often just fine trusting build systems as block boxes once you've got them setup for them.