Missing My Coworker Jason Today

Source: Dev.to

I was going to write something technical this week, but instead I’ve been thinking about Jason. He left 20 days ago, and ever since the office feels… different. Not quieter, just changed.

Reflection on Jason

Jason was one of those rare developers who looked like a senior on paper—years of experience, big projects, scars from production outages—but still thought like a curious junior. That combination is dangerous—in a good way. Most juniors are hungry but unsure; Jason was hungry and confident.

What Made Jason Different

• No hiding behind titles – He never said, “Who wrote this?” He simply said, “Okay. Let’s fix it,” and opened the logs.
• Calm debugging – While many jump straight to blame or restart everything, Jason would sit down, stay calm, and say, “Let’s reproduce it first.”
• Explaining from first principles – When a junior asked what might have seemed like a “stupid question,” Jason never sighed. He explained it as if teaching himself, breaking down concepts to their basics.
• Encouraging curiosity – He reminded us that the best seniors are just juniors who never stopped asking “why.”
• Subtle motivation – After a long sprint, when I complained about feeling behind “real senior engineers,” he replied, “Behind who? The version of you that doesn’t exist yet?” That hit harder than any performance review.

Lessons for Junior Developers

• Stop trying to look senior.
• Take ownership of small things.
• Ask better questions, even if they feel “dumb.”
• Admit what you don’t know.
• Care about the system, not just your ticket.

Advice for Senior Developers

• Remember how it felt not to understand half the codebase.
• Be the person who explains, not the one who sighs.
• During bug discussions, pause and ask, “What assumption are we making here?”

Final Thoughts

Jason’s impact wasn’t dramatic or accompanied by emotional music; it was steady and quiet. He changed how we think, not just what we ship. We miss him—not just me, but the whole team. The Slack threads remain, the code still runs, deployments still happen, and stand‑ups are still slightly too long.

Jason, if you’re reading this—we’re proud of you, cheering for your business, and looking forward to the day we grab coffee again, argue about code, and pretend we’re not secretly debugging life at the same time. Good teammates are hard to find; good friends are even harder.

See you soon, brother.