Mentoring · Oct 2026 · 2 min read

How junior developers can get unstuck faster

Everyone gets stuck. The difference is how long you stay stuck. These habits shorten it.

Read the error message in full before doing anything else, and search for its exact text. Many problems have been solved before, and the exact message finds those answers.

Give yourself a time limit. If you have made no progress after an agreed time, such as an hour, ask for help. Struggling a little teaches you; struggling for a whole day mostly costs you a day.

Keep notes of what you tried and what happened. The notes often reveal the answer, and they make your question much better when you do ask.

Explain the problem out loud, step by step, to a colleague or even to an empty chair. Saying what the code should do often shows you where it does something else.

Make the problem smaller. Remove code until you find the smallest example that still fails. When you ask for help, send that example with the error message and what you expected. Our article on writing a support request covers the details.