There absolutely is. This is a skill i take pride in - being able to run into a random failure and dig through logs, exceptions, code etc. to figure out what is missing.
Being able to quickly understand and debug a large vertical slice of a system across many layers like that without docs or handholding is really valuable in a broad SRE/production engineering type role or a do everything early engineer type role when docs/handholding are in short supply.
Not to say you have to have it. Many engineers are bad at this but way better at consistently putting out solid bug-free code quickly than me and thats a huge chunk of engineering as well.
But it is a learnable skill. 90% is honestly just reading errors carefully, googling them and following the trail but many people have sort of a panic/ignore response when a weird looking error messsage comes up somewhere and interrupts the flow.
This is a skill i take pride in - being able to run into a random failure and dig through logs, exceptions, code etc. to figure out what is missing.
And your manager wanders over and sees you haven’t written a single line of code in the last three hours and makes a mental note that you might need a kick in the pants to get up to speed.
I’m pretty good at hunting bugs but once in a while I just can’t figure out why something isn’t working and if I had to worry about being “that guy” because I had to ask for help I’d…well, things would go really bad really fast.
Assuming the OP didn’t overly exaggerate their skill set to get the job that place sounds like a nightmare to work at.
I don't know why you feel the need to shit on my calling it a skill. Yes asking for help is important too when you don't need to do this, particularly as a junior. But some times you are the guy who others come to asking to for help and are the one who has to figure it out.
For sure this is a learnable skill.
I made Linux packages for open source projects that were not my own, and definitely learned a lot about this. If anyone wants practice today, go set up a bunch of random GitHub projects.
Comments
There absolutely is. This is a skill i take pride in - being able to run into a random failure and dig through logs, exceptions, code etc. to figure out what is missing.
Being able to quickly understand and debug a large vertical slice of a system across many layers like that without docs or handholding is really valuable in a broad SRE/production engineering type role or a do everything early engineer type role when docs/handholding are in short supply.
Not to say you have to have it. Many engineers are bad at this but way better at consistently putting out solid bug-free code quickly than me and thats a huge chunk of engineering as well.
But it is a learnable skill. 90% is honestly just reading errors carefully, googling them and following the trail but many people have sort of a panic/ignore response when a weird looking error messsage comes up somewhere and interrupts the flow.
And your manager wanders over and sees you haven’t written a single line of code in the last three hours and makes a mental note that you might need a kick in the pants to get up to speed.
I’m pretty good at hunting bugs but once in a while I just can’t figure out why something isn’t working and if I had to worry about being “that guy” because I had to ask for help I’d…well, things would go really bad really fast.
Assuming the OP didn’t overly exaggerate their skill set to get the job that place sounds like a nightmare to work at.
I don't know why you feel the need to shit on my calling it a skill. Yes asking for help is important too when you don't need to do this, particularly as a junior. But some times you are the guy who others come to asking to for help and are the one who has to figure it out.
For sure this is a learnable skill. I made Linux packages for open source projects that were not my own, and definitely learned a lot about this. If anyone wants practice today, go set up a bunch of random GitHub projects.