First Week at the New Job
Hello friends, it’s been a while hasn’t it? While I’ve been working on myself, I hope you’ve also been working on your glow up haha!
This week, I have a life update for you. I’ve left my previous role as a technical associate for my first software engineering role. Shoutout to my momma because we made it. As I entered the office it dawned on me that I finally got to the point in my career where I’m going to be developing instead of creating test cases. I’m nervous, anxious, scared, ecstatic, and feeling every other feeling that comes with joining a new team.
Luckily, I don’t have imposter syndrome because I’m confident in my ability to really help my company expand. I’m also incredibly passionate about the app we’re working on because it pertains to the fitness community and if you don’t know, I’m a big fan of the gym.
So, it’s only been week one but I’ve picked up on so many thing so far. One thing that I just couldn’t be prepared for was the large code base. I’m a frontend dev so knowing where to make changes is crucial to my workflow. On the very first day, I found that you can actually do a lookup for the codebase when you’re using VScode. So instead of doing Cmd + f to look for a particular word in your file, you can just traverse all your files with cmd+shift + f and enter the word you’re looking for.
This is super nice because while you have your local host open, you can use class names or id’s with the inspect tool to find your element of interest. It really helps minimize my search so that I can focus on actual implementation.
While I know I’m not the fastest dev right now, I already have goals and I’m very open about it. I’d like to manage the entire codebase when needed so that requires me to do my own tampering. I’ll be taking the time to understand what certain functions do as they pertain to backend services or redux (which I never learned….yet). Also, keep a line of communication and know when to not struggle.
The team has been amazing and onboarding was a great time. I was recommended to make a push to the application on my first day and it wasn’t too bad. Nothing too crazy but it definitely removed some of the anxiousness that comes with potentially messing up the application. As mentioned we keep a clear line of communication always which is something I didn’t really get at the old job. I’m always asking questions about the product, the functionality, recommendations as a newcomer, our clients, and how business is ran. You should also struggle to get your first implementation and that’s okay; but also know when to ask for help. My rule is that I wont’ look for help until I reach an hour mark. If I’ve made progress with my implementation, I’ll ask for anther half hour before getting some help. I do this because I don’t want too much time to elapse before I start getting behind on my work.
My recommendation to anyone that is feeling overwhelmed is know that it’s normal. Talk to your tech lead about any questions or concerns and understand that there are no dumb questions if the answer can really help you. Even if the question make them reiterate themselves… ask away. You’ll be glad you did in the long run.
I’ll come back within a month to talk about my experiences but until then, keep hacking away. You’ve got this.
