What questions to ask a mentor in web development, specifically Aspects of JavaScript

[Inn3rs3lf]

So I have the opportunity to sit down with a senior dev and ask a few questions to see if they will mentor me. It’s a free mentorship at a company that provides recruitment for the web dev industry. I have a few questions lined up, but would love to know what you all would ask given the opportunity, to see if I have missed any.

 

[cguy]

Spaces or tabs?

 

[_kabal_]

Milk and sugar?

 

[Solarion]

How do you approach problem solving a bug in the code? Ask him what are the steps he/she follows to locate the issue.

Problem solving will be most of your career or any other technical career like electronics. They master the use of a multimeter for example, checking voltages and currents, inputs and outputs and expected values etc. It's quite similar.

 

[Steamy Tom]

Ask him at what point he decided being a real developer wasn't for him and does he regret it?

 

[Inn3rs3lf]

What do you mean by "full blown coder"? What would differentiate that from your statement of "Old days are gone"?

 

[Solarion]

What do you mean by "full blown coder"? What would differentiate that from your statement of "Old days are gone"?

Old days web dev, photoshop, Dreamweaver, Adobe, html, Javascript.

Today, require at least two programming languages, backend and front-end, python, c#, Aws or Azure with Kubernetes, Docker, and and and I can find the listing for you. They read like a shopping list.

 

[Inn3rs3lf]

Old days web dev, photoshop, Dreamweaver, Macromedia, html, Javascript.

Today, require at least two programming languages, backend and front-end, python, c#, Aws or Azure with Kubernetes, etc etc I can find the listing for you.

Yeah, I know about what is listed. It's madness. I can see that as a senior role as opposed to a junior trying to break in though.

 

[cguy]

Thing is nowadays web developer means being full blown coder. Check out any job listing for web developer. They are asking for a shopping list of coding skills and technologies. Old days are gone.

Expect to see "Full Stack" attached to those job postings.

There’s a whole spectrum of “real development” vs “sticking stuff together”, with HTML(4) roughly on the one end, and creating your own language to compile to your own ISA which runs on your own ASIC on the other end. I expect that @Steamy Tom’s point was that Full Stack is still only in the middle somewhere.

 

[_kabal_]

There’s a whole spectrum of “real development” vs “sticking stuff together”, with HTML(4) roughly on the one end, and creating your own language to compile to your own ISA which runs on your own ASIC on the other end. I expect that @Steamy Tom’s point was that Full Stack is still only in the middle somewhere.

I suspect he read “Javascript” in the title and thought it was “funny”

 

[Steamy Tom]

I suspect he read “Javascript” in the title and thought it was “funny”

hilarious to be exact

 

[MagNorthDigital]

Ask him where he sees the company in 5 years.

 

[Harmonic]

Spaces or tabs?

We don't want anyone to be fired on day one

 

[Harmonic]

Ask him at what point he decided being a real developer wasn't for him and does he regret it?

This. Formal education and a 10+ year career later, I just want to live on my farm and grow vegetables.

Wouldn't ever regret a career in CS but it is starting to get tedious. It's incredible taxing to switch between CS/math, marketing, recruitment, sales, finance, politics etc all the time

 

[battletoad]

Depends on what type of JS you want to do. If your/their focus is primarily React/Vue/Angular, focus on questions related to those frameworks.

If the focus is more general/non-framework specific, here're a few goodies:

1. what is this? (c'mon mybb, add a monospace font like Consolas)
2. how do we change this to that?
3. what is a closure? what is a good example of using it?
bonus: the interaction between I/O and the event loop.

 

[battletoad]

This. Formal education and a 10+ year career later, I just want to live on my farm and grow vegetables.

I think this is the general theme among most devs who've been in the industry long enough

Wouldn't ever regret a career in CS but it is starting to get tedious. It's incredible taxing to switch between CS/math, marketing, recruitment, sales, finance, politics etc all the time

I feel you. In fact, you're reminding me of what's in store for me tomorrow

Maybe it's just SA... I imagine overseas that the powers that be prefer one focuses solely on their core. Others lucky enough to be in the know: feel free to confirm or deny this conjecture.

 

[cguy]

I think this is the general theme among most devs who've been in the industry long enough

I feel you. In fact, you're reminding me of what's in store for me tomorrow

Maybe it's just SA... I imagine overseas that the powers that be prefer one focuses solely on their core. Others lucky enough to be in the know: feel free to confirm or deny this conjecture.

My experience (about 25 years now, 20 overseas), has shown me that this is managed a whole lot better overseas. There is appreciation that career progression doesn't mean "moving to the business side " or "building a management empire". There is also an appreciation for the fact that for many people, career progression would be a negative (more responsibility would just make them miserable). Because the pay is substantially higher (in the US at least), this means that there's nothing wrong with a freeze in progression for a decade or two or three.

In SA, one feels (well, at least I felt this, but correct me if I'm wrong) that if one stops progressing in their career, they're not going to reach a point where they are "safe" financially speaking.

I have several colleagues at my last company who have been "Level 4" for 20 years. 20 years ago Level 4 meant $170k/year. Today it means, $350k/year. They have worked remotely since even then (so no SF Bay prices), and are all very comfortable, with a great WLB. They're good at what they do, like it, and keep doing it. It is intellectually stimulating, but they haven't met the "rubric" points, of inter-team collaboration, inter-team project leadership, etc., to take them to "Level 5", and likely never will.

For those who are ambitious, and do want career progression (and outsized pay), there are extensive technical tracks (to VP equivalent level), that don't necessarily involve becoming a non-hands-on "architect" type. You will notice that Microsoft for example has one ladder, and a person can be a manager or non-manager at any level, and switch back and forth too. Google, Meta, Amazon, etc. all have engineering and managerial ladders, where the engineers can progress extensively without ever hitting a "need to move into management" barrier.

So yeah, there may be some days that I do feel like I wish I ran a quite coffee shop or something, but then I remember that I can pretty much choose what I want to do, so if I'm annoyed with what I'm doing now, I can always wrap that up and then do something else instead.

 

[Hamster]

Depends on what type of JS you want to do. If your/their focus is primarily React/Vue/Angular, focus on questions related to those frameworks.

If the focus is more general/non-framework specific, here're a few goodies:

1. what is this? (c'mon mybb, add a monospace font like Consolas)
2. how do we change this to that?
3. what is a closure? what is a good example of using it?
bonus: the interaction between I/O and the event loop.

Not sure why you'll want to ask interview questions to the mentor, but if this is what we're doing we may just as well go for broke:

1. Is currying useful?
2. Explain hoisting

And if he doesn't tell you to go get ****ed then he isn't a developer worth listening to.

 

[OkPlankton]

The wrong mentor will fix it for you, the right one gives you some direction and then watches you dangle from a rope trying to pull yourself up, while he/she laughs and drinks coffee.

 

[Herr der Verboten]

So I have the opportunity to sit down with a senior dev and ask a few questions to see if they will mentor me. It’s a free mentorship at a company that provides recruitment for the web dev industry. I have a few questions lined up, but would love to know what you all would ask given the opportunity, to see if I have missed any.

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