> or you guys are just horrible, snobby people to work with
... Or they work for a (typical) organization that pays lip service to teamwork but punishes individually - by obsessing about meaningless metrics like “velocity”, putting everybody in a position where they have to choose between being helpful productive members of a team working together toward a common goal OR meeting the arbitrary goals and deadlines that lazy managers are actually incentivizing them with.
I agree strongly that questions are critical and important and junior devs should always feel comfortable asking them. However, if you've never had to put up with useless, aggravating questions that only waste everyone's time, consider yourself lucky. There is definitely a difference between a snob and someone who doesn't do their own due diligence before involving other people.
Of all the mildly irritating experiences in the life of a developer I think juniors asking what you consider redundant questions ranks lower than office politics and a daily commute. Fortunately juniors can be sculpted by quality teamwork and leadership. My job as a tech lead is to be patient and use my experience to point people in the right direction. Some juniors don't know what questions to ask Google so I am glad they ask me and don't push a PR riddled with wasted time that I could have helped with.
I consider myself lucky to be in a position to teach and curate happiness. I was once a junior and probably asked some stupid questions that I could have just Googled but I didn't know what I didn't know.
If people are holding up meetings with low level questions you likely have involved the wrong people in the meeting. Every problem presented in the original comment has a solution. By all means let someone go if they are struggling so much that they are unhappy, else it's on you for hiring poorly or leading poorly.
Asking stupid questions from time to time is fine, asking stupid questions all the time while never getting anything done without handholding is not fine and will destroy team morale unless the person is fired.
... Or they work for a (typical) organization that pays lip service to teamwork but punishes individually - by obsessing about meaningless metrics like “velocity”, putting everybody in a position where they have to choose between being helpful productive members of a team working together toward a common goal OR meeting the arbitrary goals and deadlines that lazy managers are actually incentivizing them with.