💯 You can tell an engineer why something won’t work based on your experience but they are far more likely to retain a lived experience.
My thing in those situations is to say “let’s see what happens if we try that approach”.
Don’t say “do it & you’ll see why it’s wrong”.
My thing in those situations is to say “let’s see what happens if we try that approach”.
Don’t say “do it & you’ll see why it’s wrong”.
https://twitter.com/ksylor/status/1494675737793728518
It’s also entirely possible that their suggestion will work, and you the senior engineer is going to learn something invaluable.
I am not trying to infantilize anyone here, but those of us with kids immediately see the parallels.
My 7yo is riding her bike. I say don’t slam the brakes when you’re going over dry leaves, coz physics. She does it anyway, gets a bloody knee.
She’ll retain this experience.
My 7yo is riding her bike. I say don’t slam the brakes when you’re going over dry leaves, coz physics. She does it anyway, gets a bloody knee.
She’ll retain this experience.
And then when she’s okay we can talk about why she got hurt, and about traction, and how *I* also badly got hurt doing the same thing she did.
Without the lived experience, your advice is just theory. Theory that happened to _you_, a possible idiot.
Without the lived experience, your advice is just theory. Theory that happened to _you_, a possible idiot.
To tie all of this back to the original tweet- it’s important to let people make mistakes.
People learn from their own mistakes, not yours.
Provide them the kind of environment where learning from a mistake isn’t traumatic.
People learn from their own mistakes, not yours.
Provide them the kind of environment where learning from a mistake isn’t traumatic.
In that vein, we need to celebrate mistakes! If someone breaks prod for the first time, you can celebrate it and help them fix it, or you can add to their panic.
This is a really good quote I want to add to the thread.
This is a really good quote I want to add to the thread.
https://twitter.com/andytuba/status/1499287106295767040?s=20
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