From junior to autonomous developer in 90 days

The gap between a junior and an "autonomous" developer is rarely raw coding skill. It is the ability to unblock yourself, scope your own work and communicate progress. All three can be trained in about three months.

Days 1–30: learn to get unstuck

Before asking for help, timebox 30 minutes: read the error twice, reproduce it in isolation, and search the codebase for prior art. Then ask — with what you tried. You will solve half of your blockers alone, and your questions will earn better answers.

Days 31–60: own a slice end to end

Volunteer for a small feature and carry it from ticket to production: design note, implementation, tests, deployment, monitoring. Shipping something whole — however small — teaches more than ten code reviews.

Days 61–90: make your work visible

• Post a short weekly summary: done, next, blocked.
• Write down every decision that took you more than an hour.
• Demo early, even when it is ugly.

Autonomy is trust, and trust is built on predictability. After 90 days of this routine, your team will stop checking on you — because they will not need to.