[noir_lord]

Graphs and tags for me, It's hard to describe but I can picture parts of the codebase I've worked with but only roughly until I need to interact with them then I can hold those details in my head but I lose that clarity somewhere else - I think it's a cognitive limit I have, I don't know where that lands against other developers and to an extent I think it can be trained.

As a lead/senior the thing I've observed as the crucial difference between say someone with a year or twos experience vs someone at my point is how fast I can get up to speed with a codebase I've never seen/touched.

Partly I think it's knowing how to use the tools better to get the answers I need and partly pure cyniscism, I've learnt to turn off the "if this was done sensibly" bit in my head so I can actually see what it's doing over what it probably should have actually been doing.

One of the things I really focus on with my juniors is how to use the tools available (and an A4 pad and pen) to figure out what the system is actually doing.

[ru6xul6]

Can't speak for you, but I think a lot of that comes from experience, e.g. put out fires caused by whatever stupid reason, and eventually build up awareness of what could go wrong. Therefore, without reading too much into the code, simply being aware of their existence becomes largely helpful.