Asking questions is a developer superpower. Many new devs are often hesitant to ask questions though! It could be due to imposter syndrome, fear about the impression their question would bring, or any number of reasons.
Questions that are broad and over simplified are the wrong way to go. Before we look at great questions, let's look at questions people ask and how they could be improved:
- Can you teach me to code?
- How can I become a developer?
Learning to code and becoming a developer is great, but posing questions like this is similar to wondering if a buffet will serve food. Are you more of a visual person (who might prefer frontend development?)? Do you like sushi or would Indian cuisine be more your to your liking? Maybe working towards becoming a software reliability engineer would be best.
There are different types of developers, and the work they do varies widely. It depends, and in tech, it depends can be an answer to most things. That's why being specific and providing context can allow questions to get you unstuck when coding, endear you to a potential future colleague, and help others along their journey.
Here are examples of detailed questions:
- I'm working on landing my first frontend developer role. My stack is React, Next, Node, and SQL. I've built my own projects, contributed to open source, and gotten two certifications (one in frontend, the other in API's/backend). What can I do to continue to learn, grow, and meet people who could help me land a job?
- I tried running the e2e (end to end) tests but am returning errors. I noticed a recent change that was merged in changed a filename. I pulled in those changes, but could the change be causing an error elsewhere that's making the tests fail?
Another special part about tech is people want to help you. When you ask questions that are more in line with the last two examples, people are much more likely to give you an answer, or try and find someone who can give you an answer.
Developers are resourceful by necessity, but we all know not every single question has an exact answer from Google. Dig into what's making you curious. Be as detailed as you can, but also keep your question concise.
Questions can unlock your career as a developer. Remember how important they are, why they need to be well worded, and you'll be that much better of a developer!
Top comments (0)