Thread by @jamonholmgren

One of the things I’ve noticed about junior-level developers is they tend to optimize for the wrong things.

For example, they will get so nervous about taking too long that they won’t properly test their changes before submitting the PR.

This results in a lot more of the reviewer’s time to be spent testing and providing feedback. Which is fine here and there when you’re starting, but if it becomes a pattern, the reviewer can start to become impatient and lose trust.

Luckily, this isn’t too hard to fix.

Create a “PR checklist” that you use for each PR and check off the various things.

[ ] Works on Edge
[ ] Works in different screen sizes
[ ] Includes tests
[ ] Includes documentation

Ask your mentors to help you make this list.

As you receive feedback, ask for things you can do to avoid this sort of issue in the future and, most importantly, *add it to your checklist*.

As far as speed, there are tons of reasons that developers are too slow. And being too slow is totally an issue, even though some will tell you it’s not.

How do you get faster at coding? Well, there are tons of reasons people are slow.

* Slow typing, lack of shortcut familiarity
* Difficulty understanding the problem
* Difficulty devising a solution
* Lack of debugging skills
* Lack of confidence
* Overengineering

& more

They all have different solutions. There’s no one size fits all fix. I will say that identifying your slowness issues, working at techniques to overcome them, and time are critical ingredients to becoming fast and effective.

Be open about where you’re at with it. You’ll find that senior developers are almost all sympathetic to this.

What they’re less sympathetic to is submitting half-done work as done. Hence, the checklist.