What task in your role would be the hardest to explain to someone outside your industry? For me, some of the work seems straightforward until you try explaining all the constraints, tradeoffs, and decision-making involved. What’s something people usually don’t understand about your job?

What’s one engineering “best practice” that you think is actually overused or applied in situations where it doesn’t add much value? For me, it’s excessive documentation on very small, low-risk changes. Documentation is important, but I’ve seen teams spend more time documenting simple fixes than implementing them. Where do you draw the line?

What’s something that seemed critically important early in your career but matters much less to you now? For me, being the smartest person in the room has become a lot less important than being part of a strong team.

I'm a junior engineer, but I inherited a project mid-construction because the designer left. I wasn't around for the early phases, but now I’m running the site meetings. I'm stressed about the technical gap and being asked questions I don't know the answers to. I don't want to appear clueless in front of the clients, even though I am. Is it okay to say that I don't know, but I will get back to them? Or does that look unprofessional?

Obviously, no one expects a newly graduated hire to know everything during their first week, but early impressions stick. Question for the managers and senior engineers on here: What can a new grad do in those first few days to make you incredibly glad you hired them? What sets them apart early on?