Main image of article Junior, Senior Developers Blame Each Other for the Same Things: Study
Junior developers and their senior counterparts love to point the finger at one another. A new study offers an idea of their major complaints – and it’s sort of hilarious. For junior developers, documentation is the biggest concern; according to them, senior colleagues seem to be doing a terrible job of noting what code is supposed to do. Second on their list is spaghetti code; even the most senior developers forget to refactor. ‘Ghost bugs’ ranks third, while labeling everything a "top priority" is fourth. A very close fifth place goes to "estimates treated as deadlines," which is either poor communication or senior devs just plain messing with the new kids. And hey – guess what senior developers hate about junior devs? Spaghetti code ranks highest, while "everything is a top priority" is a very close second. Fourth is that ever-so-popular "estimates treated as deadlines" category, and poor documentation is fourth. A distant fifth place is "ghost bugs," which just sounds like a really bad Ed Wood film (or, any Ed Wood film, we guess). Spiderman developers blame each other We’re not sure what to do with this new data. It all comes from HackerRank’s 2019 DevSkills Report, which queried over 71,000 developers from over 100 countries. But it’s safe to say this represents a good sampling of how tech pros feel about one another. How can junior and senior developers have the same gripes? We understand the variations. Senior developers being a bit more annoyed by jumped-up junior devs who think everything is top priority is understandable. Junior developers – who are likely trying to learn the codebase more than anything else – being bemused by poor documentation is equally digestible. But there are nine topics to choose from on HackerRank's list of grievances, so junior and senior developers sharing the top five is interesting and a bit surprising. Maybe everyone needs to sit down and talk it out. ‘Spaghetti code’ is maybe a bit subjective, but poor documentation and prioritizing projects isn’t. We just want you all to get along.