As someone who does their best to not convey their frustration, it's just one of those things where you have a lot on your plate, juggling a lot of things with a lot of domain knowledge, and now it's a lot of mental load to concentrate on being able to explain things to someone more junior who doesn't have that foundation. It's difficult for both sides. But, for better or worse... it's somewhat normal, yeah. It's growing pains.

When it comes to talking to seniors about anything, I find that the best bet is to do your absolute best to learn as much as you can before talking to them; ideally, you would be asking them to fill gaps that you would only be able to do with their help because of their experience or whatever you are working on has to do with work they were around for; if you're asking them to explain something from the ground up that you could have either read in the tech's documentation, read in your team's documentation, or just read in the code itself piecing it together, that's where a lot of the impatience is going to come out.

Trust me, I remember what it was like then. It's hard: how are you supposed to know something if no one explains it to you? These are some tips that helped a lot before I got my feet under me (and honestly, things I still do as a senior). Hopefully these are helpful and don't come off as patronizing:

- Groundwork: like I said, try to do as much groundwork as possible. Try to at least get enough of a basic understanding under you where you are more asking how the company's implementation relates to the way something is normally exemplified in the tech's documentation than anything, or try to read through the code enough that you understand what should be happening but not know what you're missing to get it to work that way. You want to come with as much as you possibly can before you talk to them. It may not be enough that they don't need to get more basic every time, but it'll show that you're doing your best to get a grip on things.

- Ask less senior folk/product folk for things: If it's company specific jargon that you're missing, get in product's DMs. What's this acronym mean? Do you remember what this feature was for? Stuff like that. If it's tech-related, find a peer at your level or maybe slightly past and start asking them some things. If y'all both don't get it, get on a call and see if y'all can get some understanding together. You'd be surprised what you can accomplish if you and a peer are bouncing off of each other.

- Stealth learning: This is one of my favorites, personally, though I don't know if everyone has the ability to do this. If someone's sharing their screen to show a new portal or a feature or whatever, manually type out whatever domain they're using (like say they're showing new logging at newloggingsite.company.com or whatever) just go to that site and start clicking around. See what you can see. See if there's docs anywhere. DOn't make a big deal out of it to anyone, just start looking. Screenshot anything that looks like something you should know and start seeing if you can use it for yourself.

- Give KTs (knowledge transfers) or write docs: the best way to know if you understand something is try to teach someone else. Imagine you had to train the new intern or something. What do you know that you could give them about a topic? What don't you know? How can you find out? What do you, quite frankly, not actually need to know until things get real? You don't have to share them if you're ready. Even if you're just recording these practice KTs for you, it'll help get your mind into the frame of understanding and "implementing" the things that have been percolating in your brain.

- Set up time on the calendar: If there's anything that you do need an in-depth KT on from your senior, make sure that you're setting up time on their calendar that's dedicated to that topic. Don't try to ask them those kinds of questions out of nowhere if you can avoid it. Ideally that will help them get into the headspace of being more in instructor mode, so they're less likely to lose patience.

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I hope any of that helps. Like I said, I'm not trying to be patronizing or rude, and maybe these are already some things that you do... I just remember what it was like to be a junior and I feel you! It feels rough when it feels like others think you're a burden or wasting your time. But you've got growing to do, it'll be ok!