Third Week as a Frontend Dev
It’s been almost a year since I started blogging about my transition into software engineering and it’s been an awesome journey. I just started my third week at my new job so let’s get after my experience during week 2. So far, it has been a very humbling experience. The first few days, I felt super slow and like a big nuisance. It was taking me an entire day to do a simple Jira ticket and I’m not sure why. Every-time I get assistance, it dawns on me that I overthink these challenges because the solutions just seem so simple and they make sense when explained to me.
My tech lead pretty much had to have pair programming sessions with me most of the time. Felt like I was wasting his time but it did really help so much. I’ve also been introduced to so many different tools the company uses for analytics like mixpanel and AWS cloudwatch. It’s so interesting to see the team tackle other realms of business that isn’t software engineering. Makes me happy I decided to go this route because I’m not sure that I would do well in a business development role.
Since I was working so slowly, I started doubting myself. Not sure what was making me so incapable of creating solutions for the app. Perhaps an off week? I hope so. It’s only Monday today but I managed to almost clear all my tickets today. I’m feeling good and refreshed. I’m getting eased into things so I’ve currently got tasks that aren’t time sensitive but I’m working on improving my work flow right now.
If you’re feeling like I am, I’m sure it’s normal. I think its important to know what exactly is hindering your progress. Not sure what it was for me the second week but this week seems so much better. Talk to your tech lead about it and see if there’s something you can do about it. Maybe you’re overwhelmed, I know I was. We came up with a game plan where I’m fully responsible for one very specific thing on the app. That way, things seem much more manageable.
