Tips to do as a junior engineer

I’ve never been promoted internally.
Moving between companies was how I got to the next level.

While I’m not a junior engineer anymore
Here’s what I wish I did differently when I was.

• Learn Git
• Write more docs
• Review more code
• Push back being on-call
• Take less tasks that aren’t visible
• Deeply understand my internal tools
• Write better pull request descriptions
• Ask more questions about the system
• Learn more about the APIs we’re using
• Learn about the databases we’re using
• Learn more about our metrics and alarms
• Ask what I can do for my senior engineers
• Learn more about our deployment pipeline
• Schedule time to meet all of my teammates
• Take more tasks that help me learn the system
• Have more promotion conversations with my manager
• Take more videos and screenshots of my code changes
• Skip meetings where I didn’t have anything to contribute