If you need someone to talk to feel free to DM me. I'm an engineer in FAANG with +10 yoe and I mentored junior engineers before. I'm always happy to help.
To your point, this is causing you distress, and in a sense that's a good thing! harness that feeling to improve yourself. The times in my career when I grew the most is when I made big mistakes or received tough feedback: I used the pain to force myself to avoid it from repeating.
There is a lot to unpack there so I'll focus on a few points.
Only you can judge if your team is the right place for you at this time or not. It should never be too late to ask basic questions. Heck, I've been in my team 2 years and this week I asked a colleague to explain to me some basics about how our system works. If they judge your or shun you for asking then you know is time to move on. But if you don't do you'll never learn.
Not to sound too harsh but if you made the exact same mistake twice (or more!) it's on you. When I see colleagues making the same mistakes over a over it certainly raises some questions about their performance. It's ok to screw up and I've done plenty, but make sure to learn and correct for the next time. How this looks like is context dependent, but it might be changes in you (e.g. being more careful), changes in the process (e.g. more automation), etc.
Lastly you say it's hard to know what's a junior error and what isn't. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you made a mistake and should learn from it. Not making those mistakes is part of your career growth.
I understand that all of this is easy for me to say but hard to do. You seem to be in a low point and facing mistakes a criticism is emotionally draining. You should start by practicing the cycle of building confidence [1] so that you can use that surplus to tackle these problems. Find something you are an expert at and give your team a talk about it. If there isn't anything, find a part of your system and become an expert in that. Find something you enjoy and brings value to the team (e.g. writing documentation) and become an exemplary practitioner. Even small wins go a long way.
> Not to sound too harsh but if you made the exact same mistake twice (or more!) it's on you.
I wouldn't necessarily leap to this. If the mistake is like the op said (doing something in the wrong environment without realizing) I'd lean more towards a system problem. Why was it possible to do this without realizing? Why is prod the default? Why wasn't there confirmation? Why is there something that relies on peoples memories or undocumented knowledge?
When I come across these types of things I fix the system/docs/process. I can only do that because I have the experience to recognize that's the problem, the confidence to call it out, the clout for others to agree (instead of blaming me), and the technical ability to execute.
It takes time to build that up, and it's one of the differences between jr and "senior" positions.
Sometimes I recognize these situations before but often it's by making a "dumb" mistake, which I still do despite having nearly 20 years experience. I generally don't make the same mistake twice but that's only because I make it so I literally can't.
> Not to sound too harsh but if you made the exact same mistake twice (or more!) it's on you.
This. The first mistake in a class of mistakes is a freebie, and even if the outcome was pretty bad, if it was also a process failure, it's not on you. After that you should know better. Too many different mistakes is also bad because it shows you're not being careful.
Think about how actions might be risky. If the process is error-prone, triple check your work. If you're not sure if something is right, ask. There will be situations without guardrails, and you need to learn how to work without them.
To your point, this is causing you distress, and in a sense that's a good thing! harness that feeling to improve yourself. The times in my career when I grew the most is when I made big mistakes or received tough feedback: I used the pain to force myself to avoid it from repeating.
There is a lot to unpack there so I'll focus on a few points.
Only you can judge if your team is the right place for you at this time or not. It should never be too late to ask basic questions. Heck, I've been in my team 2 years and this week I asked a colleague to explain to me some basics about how our system works. If they judge your or shun you for asking then you know is time to move on. But if you don't do you'll never learn.
Not to sound too harsh but if you made the exact same mistake twice (or more!) it's on you. When I see colleagues making the same mistakes over a over it certainly raises some questions about their performance. It's ok to screw up and I've done plenty, but make sure to learn and correct for the next time. How this looks like is context dependent, but it might be changes in you (e.g. being more careful), changes in the process (e.g. more automation), etc.
Lastly you say it's hard to know what's a junior error and what isn't. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you made a mistake and should learn from it. Not making those mistakes is part of your career growth.
I understand that all of this is easy for me to say but hard to do. You seem to be in a low point and facing mistakes a criticism is emotionally draining. You should start by practicing the cycle of building confidence [1] so that you can use that surplus to tackle these problems. Find something you are an expert at and give your team a talk about it. If there isn't anything, find a part of your system and become an expert in that. Find something you enjoy and brings value to the team (e.g. writing documentation) and become an exemplary practitioner. Even small wins go a long way.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=building+confidence+cycle&sx...