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Misunderstanding the difference could cause setback in your career
Independence is often mentioned in various rubrics of the software engineer ladders in various companies. For example, Google defines L4 software engineers to be able to work on small-scale projects or components of larger projects without supervision.
The key term here is “without supervision”, which is equivalent to independence; as a result, in order to get promotion, some engineers would try to achieve this independence. But misunderstanding the difference could cause setback in their career.
Working independently does not mean you don’t ask question. Working independently usually means working independently from your supervisors such as managers or tech leads. But it does not mean you should isolate yourself and don’t seek help from your supervisors. Without asking questions or delaying asking questions could lower the productivity of your work.
Working independently often means, you are given projects with concrete goals, and you can define the path to reach to the goal through your design(the design part could have supervision since the project could be under the scope of a larger project owned by someone more senior). You can seek suggestions or recommendations when you see multiple paths. You can ask questions regarding libraries you have not worked on. As long as it is you that drive the projects to reach that goals, and asking questions can enable or accelerate you toward the goals, then you are still working independently.
