The presentation from Droidcon Berlin 2021

1. FlixMobility
Junioring Senior Developers
Vladimir Jovanović – Senior Android Developer
www.vladimirj.dev
@VladimirWrites

2. FlixMobility
Junioring Senior Developers
Vladimir Jovanović – Junior Android Developer
www.vladimirj.dev
@VladimirWrites

3. @VladimirWrites
Meet the Pyro - www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhOnX8qt3I

4. @VladimirWrites
How to Work With Junior Developers?

5. @VladimirWrites
0 – Titles Are Meaningless
• Everybody in your team should be taken equally
• If you are using them to establish a pecking order, please
stop

6. @VladimirWrites
1 – Our Own Ego
• It’s hard to admit that we don’t know something
• We value our opinion way more than we should
• Become a junior again
• Pick a hobby at which you suck

7. @VladimirWrites
2 – Respect Your Colleagues and Be Kind
• Always be kind
• Also be kind towards developers online
• Learn to not get annoyed when someone deosn’t know
something

8. @VladimirWrites
3 – Be a Teacher
• Sharing knowledge is one of the most humbling
experiences
• Learn new technologies by sharing your knowledge
• Teach them all the things that you wish someone taught
you when you were a junior developer

9. @VladimirWrites
4 – Be Approachable
• Listen to their problems and guide them
• Onboarding should be the most important task in your
sprint
• Learn to be OK with being interrupted
• Being in a flow is overrated

10. @VladimirWrites
5 – Pair-Programming
• It’s an awesome way to build a relationship
• Let juniors do most of the work

11. @VladimirWrites
6 – Help Them Grow
• Teach them how to find a solution instead of showing
them the solution
• Don’t give them boring and easy tasks
• They should be contributing to the codebase from the
get-go
• Your main goal when working with juniors is for them to
spend as little time as possible being juniors

12. @VladimirWrites
7 – Give Constructive Feedback
• Learn how to give feedback
• Concentrate on the behavior, not the person
• Be specific, be realistic, and be timely
• Avoid judgments
• Keep it private
• Ask if they are ready to receive feedback before giving it

13. @VladimirWrites
8 – Learn From Junior Developers
• Juniors are learning 10 times more than you are
• Staying up to date with new technologies is much easier
when you have junior devs in the team

14. @VladimirWrites
9 – Listen to Their Ideas
• Juniors bring fresh ideas, excitement, and optimism to
the team
• They are also not useless, or a net negative to the team

15. @VladimirWrites
Bonus Point – Your career is suffering the most
when your company doesn’t employ junior devs
• Team filled with senior developers is not a fun place to
work at
• Having juniors in the team will enable you to grow

16. @VladimirWrites
I am not always using all these points

17. @VladimirWrites
Android development is amazing
but it’s also hard
Data Binding
View Binding
Jetpack Compose
Dagger
Hilt
K
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n
Activity
A
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p
C
o
m
p
a
t
A
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t
i
v
i
t
y
FragmentActivity

18. @VladimirWrites
MVVM! MVI!

19. @VladimirWrites
What can we do?!

20. @VladimirWrites
THANK
YOU!

21. @VladimirWrites
Vladimir Jovanovic
www.vladimirj.dev
@VladimirWrites www.slideshare.net/VladimirWrites