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10 Things You Should Know for Your First Developer Job
Photo by Benjamin Child on Unsplash
After two years of freelancing, I made the shift back into the corporate world. It’s been a little over a year now and I’ve learned a lot of things. Things that would have saved me a lot of time and energy if I had known them beforehand.
Perhaps you’ve just landed your first software developer job or are a few weeks in. You may be confident in your coding skills and logic, but there are many other relational and non-technical facets to this career that you may not be prepared for.
Well, let me lighten that load a bit for you.
Here are 10 things, from my experience, that will you need to know:
1. Learn How to Properly Ask for Help
Believe me, there is a right and wrong way to do it.
When you start this job, you will inevitably run into roadblocks. You’re going to get stuck. And when you do, and your available juniors can’t help, you’ll have to find a mid or senior-level developer for direction.
So how do you properly ask them for help?
Let’s start with the wrong way.
This wrong way is to say, “Hey, Jim, I have this problem and I can’t figure out what to do. Can you help me?”
What’s the issue here?
Well, you haven’t done your homework. You aren’t giving them context to work with. You also aren’t demonstrating that you have made some genuine efforts to find the answer yourself.
Every dev is expected to attempt the work first, then ask. If you have, you should approach them in this manner instead:
“Hey, Jim, I have this task and I seem to have hit a roadblock. Here are the things I have tried: X, Y, Z. Do you have any thoughts?”
This is the key. You need to be able to demonstrate the approaches you have taken yourself. Otherwise, they are going to have to start problem-solving from scratch and no one likes to do that. They are going to assume that you haven’t sufficiently wrestled with the task.
The key is to inform them of the steps you have taken to resolve it. Often, the information you provide will give them a hint that they can use to help you get unstuck.
Remember, they are just as busy, if not busier, than you. Do the work first.
2. Coding Is Only Part of Your Job
We all have this vision of going into work, sitting down, and coding all day long. Just you, your code, and your coffee.
But that never happens. (In fact, I don’t think anyone could sustain it!)
Your expertise is needed in other areas as well.
You see, coders are brainstormers, thinkers, architects. You’ll find yourself planning new projects, brainstorming new features, whiteboarding, and unfortunately, in a lot of meetings.
So while you should ready your coding skills, be sure to develop high-level thinking and be ready to make your non-programming, intellectual contribution to the company.
3. Don’t Try to Be Heroic in Your First Week or Month
You might show up on your first day feeling super confident. You may actually be an awesome developer that has a lot to offer the company. You may be tempted to show off your skills and do things to prove that you were a good hire.
Don’t.
Don’t jump in there and start volunteering for big, important things.
When someone goes, “Hey, team, we need someone to migrate all this data over to this other environment and also such and such,” and it’s your first day, do not raise your hand. Sit back and let someone else do it.
Your time will come. You will be able to prove your worth soon enough. But not at this point.
Refrain from trying to be heroic and potentially screwing things up from the outset.
A guy at my work did this. He accidentally deleted an entire resource group and its contents in Azure on his third day.
He’s had a hilarious nickname since.
Humble yourself.
4. Be Sure You’re Comfortable With Using Git
Almost all software companies use version control, and more times than not, git.
I guarantee that it will be assumed from the outset that you know it.
Whatever languages you’ve been hired to program in, they may give you a little flexibility, a little time to warm up. Sometimes they will even train you.
Well, with git this won’t happen. It will most likely be assumed that you know it. (And if you don’t, then you can wow them with your extra abilities.)
Also, be sure you know how to use it in a team setting as well as best practices, like pulling the latest changes before pushing.
5. Always Give Yourself More Time to Finish a Task Than You Think It’s Going to Take
With freelancing, you often have smaller budgets. These smaller budgets make you naturally feel like you need to work quicker. You feel the time crunch. (I mean, who wants to work for free?)
Well in the corporate environment, budgets are usually much bigger. You have more time to get things done.
Heed this advice from the outset: Don’t play the hero when giving time estimates on your tasks.
Things never go as smoothly as you think they will. Things can often break at the last minute, an unexpected meeting may be called, or a system goes down.
Make a habit of giving yourself more estimated time than you really think it will take. Give yourself some padding. If you feel like you might be done by the end of the day, tell them you’ll have it ready by the end of the week. Then when it’s ready earlier, we all celebrate!
#careers #coding-interviews #programming #workplace #learn-to-code
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