Jelena Racković · · 4 min read · Teams & delivery
Junior vs senior designers: the myths both sides believe
Over the last fifteen years, a great many people have completed their internships with me. Some arrived from design schools, some from programming, and some from somewhere else entirely. Watching them develop has taught me that much of what we say about juniors and seniors is myth, and that each side holds its own version of it.
Myth one: juniors don’t know anything
Juniors know a great deal. What they do not yet know is which of those things matter in this project, with this client and under this deadline. That is not a deficit of knowledge but of context, and context is the easiest thing in the world to share, provided someone takes the trouble.
Myth two: juniors won’t cope
They cope far better than we tend to expect, provided they are not afraid. A junior who fears making a mistake will conceal it, and a concealed mistake is the costly kind. A junior who feels safe will ask, experiment and return with something you did not anticipate.
The myths juniors believe about seniors
Juniors have their own myths: that seniors only criticise, that they have forgotten what it was like to begin, and that they themselves will never reach the same place. None of it is true, but it is easy to believe when nobody explains what a senior actually went through to get there.
How I teach
I teach design as I learnt it, as a graphic designer first: composition, typography, colour and hierarchy. Only then do we introduce interfaces, systems and code, because the fundamentals are what make everything else make sense.
I do not treat a junior as a beginner. I give them as much as they can absorb while still feeling secure, and enough that it remains engaging, because people practise what excites them, not what frightens them. Nor do I ever tell anyone that something does not work. I show them what it might be compared with, another layout, another reference, another way of solving the same problem, and let them see the difference for themselves.
I also ask them to keep a record of their work and to revisit it from time to time. Comparing what you made three months ago with what you make today is the surest remedy for feeling behind. The same record keeps them grounded. They always know what they are capable of, and to what extent, so they don’t take off before they’re ready.
When a junior goes first
Once a junior has formed their own value system, recognises their red flags and has learnt how to reason through a problem, something shifts. They know when they are stuck, whom to call and how to find their way out. At that point I sometimes entrust them with a major role or a significant project ahead of a senior, and it works.
I do not regard it as a gamble. It is a decision I take deliberately, and only under those conditions. Skill is only part of it. They also need cognitive and emotional intelligence and genuine empathy, and they need to bring all of it to bear on the work. When they do, the title on their contract matters far less than people suppose.
What both sides get
Juniors who develop in this way learn respect for seniors, because along the way they discover what it truly took to get there. Seniors gain colleagues they can rely on rather than colleagues they must supervise. And the team ceases to be divided into those who know and those who do not.
The greatest myth of all is that seniority is a level one attains. It is closer to a discipline you keep up, and juniors can begin to practise it on their very first day.
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