design is not a senior privilege
Some teams treat architecture as a separate role reserved for "senior" engineers. They draw the diagrams, make the decisions, and pass the work.
This separation is a problem.
Design isn't a reward for experience. It's a skill that improves with practice, not just time. Like any skill, it should be part of the job from the start.
You grow by doing
You don't learn implementation all at once. You start small: an endpoint, a form, a script. Later, you take on a bigger piece: auth, infra, data flows. Eventually, you ship whole services, across teams or markets.
The work changes in size and scope, but not in kind. Building an endpoint at year one isn't so different from doing it ten years later. The difference is speed, clarity, and autonomy.
No one expects you to wait a decade before writing real code. You build early, and you learn as you go.
Design should work the same way.
Experience sharpens judgment
As you gain experience, you start to see what the original design missed. Some parts don't hold up under real-world conditions. Others feel more complicated than necessary. You begin to notice patterns:
- Unclear or outdated requirements
- Missing integration or dependency awareness
- Unnecessary complexity
- Weak technical justification
- Tradeoffs made for convenience
- Decisions without user feedback
These moments matter. They teach you that there isn't just one way to build something. They show you that judgment is learned, not given.
Design is a collaboration
That's why you should design early. Not just write code. Take a problem. Shape it. Talk to people. Make tradeoffs. Write the doc, get feedback, and revise it with care.
In good teams, this is normal. Someone will ask you to help design a small but real component. You'll lead the doc. The team will give input. You'll improve it together.
Design is everyone's responsibility
The goal is simple: your design should lead to the same outcome mine would. You have one year of experience. I have twenty. But the result should be just as solid.
Leading doesn't mean doing everything yourself. It means setting the structure, gathering context and guiding collaboration.
A culture that trusts people to grow by doing. That's what good culture looks like.