Asking Questions Is NOT A Sign Of Weakness

Believing that asking questions and requesting help is a sign of weakness is easily one of the biggest misconceptions among onboarding software engineers and just people in general. If you believe this, you are simply holding back your career.

Here are the core points from the video:

• Nobody knows everything - And because of this, asking questions is a fundamentally human experience. There will always be some corner of the ecosystem that you don't know, and this is especially true when you work at FAANG / Big Tech, even if you're very tenured there.
• Liberally pursue support - This is especially true when you're earlier-in-career or new to a team or company. As long as you're polite, humble, and empathetic when seeking help, you'll be surprised at how much support you can get and how happy your team is to give it to you. Follow the advice here to learn how to ask questions in this way: "How do you overcome the fear of asking stupid questions / bothering people when you need help?"
• Minimize the time that you're a n00b - Let's say perception is a problem and people think you're annoying when you're asking for help as a new team member. It's much better to ask a bunch of questions in a short period of time and become very independent afterwards instead of asking a few questions here and there and prolonging the period where you're an inefficient newbie for 3-6 months and dragging down the team. The latter would be much more annoying.

Related resources:

• "How do I not bother people when asking for help?"
• "How do I balance being more independent and asking questions?"