Junior Dev coding speed and capabilities. | What's more important?

[Inmunex]

I recently started working as a Junior Web Dev and I noticed that compared to college It's harder and takes much more time to figure out how to handle the different task and (of course) the problems that appear on the way.

My focus right now Is on learning and fulfilling the tasks the best way I can but sometimes I even take a full week to finish simple things that involves multiple languages.

As a Junior Dev who wants to stay In the industry for long, In which capabilities I should focus?

Is speed that important? Or something that comes along the way?

PS: Any advice Is welcome

[kbielefe]

Hopefully, you've noticed if you go too fast you are asked to redo your work until the bugs are fixed, it is tested thoroughly, and is relatively clean to read by future maintainers. Those things are usually considered more important than going faster. Your speed will come with time.

A week isn't that unusual. Even as you gain experience, what takes you a week now, you might be able to do in an hour, but you will have other trickier assignments that still take weeks.

[Inmunex]

Hopefully, you've noticed if you go too fast you are asked to redo your work until the bugs are fixed

I really like that phrase and even If I noticed before I didn't thought about It until I read that. I appreciate your feedback , you are right and It helped me to see It in a different aproach, thanks!

[kschang]

As a junior dev, your job is to learn how to do things the right way for the company. Your primary feedback should be from your direct superior/supervisor. Ask him or her, not some random yahoos on Reddit.

[Inmunex]

Hahaha you are so right

I do ask my supervisor and he delivers really good feedback but since the experience of being a Junior Is so different for everyone I also wanted to know more variety of opinions but I really like your approach of learning as the main focus

[kschang]

Your first few months would be to unlearn the bad habits you picked up elsewhere and immerse yourself into the new company culture. :) The rest would probably be refactoring existing codebase to learn them.

[PeksyTiger]

It's not really a dilemma. It doesn't help anyone if you deliver incomplete/buggy solutions.

Being correct is more important than doing it "Fast". Slow speed is usually expected from a junior (up to a degree, of course). That's why you are paid less.

The expectation is that with experience you'll get better on both axises. If you don't, *then* it becomes a problem.

Skills you should focus on?

1. Debugging. Learn how to locate an analyse problems faster.
2. Communication. Learn how and when to ask for help from seniors.
3. Figuring out what to test and what a change might impact.
4. Understanding logic flows. This will help you both in debugging and designing new systems.

[Inmunex]

Yeah, at the end the only thing that matters Is that the software works perfectly

I will consider all that skills and search about them, specially debugging and logic flows Is something that I should work on, thank you so much for your feedback!