It’s been a while since I wrote my last article. Since then, many things happened in the middle. Above all, I’m expecting my first baby, and as you could suppose (or not) these time has been revolutionary at any scale. I had the crazy idea to take a new challenge in my career and I changed job. A great way to improve your skills and to learn from the seniors could be to take it to the next level. That’s how I got an opportunity and I took it.
So here are my new list (that I’m still learning about) and I hope you like it.
1. Be confident. Believe me. Although you might be a confident person in the past, it seems that your body decided for you now so probably you’ll be through a lot of change. Don’t let this to lead you. Focus on what you need to do and keep pushing yourself as always to be better. This means that even though you’ll have some doubts and fears about everything (which is absolutely normal), don’t let this to defined you. Remember who you are (said Mufasa) and become a new version of yourself, like a combo meal.
2. Keep it together. There will be a lot of tears, more than I can even admit. If your code doesn’t compile, you cry. If you suddenly forget how a method works, you cry. If you don’t find where the bug is, you cry more. Scientists call it hormones, but I call it the unexpected. They will be with you for nine months and even after. They are part of you now. However, being sensitive is not always bad, actually makes us more empathetic to others and encourage our creativity. These are nice qualities to bring to the whole team.
3. Breath. There will be moments when you will have to deal with tough personalities (as always) at work and you could feel not supported, not understood. Prove yourself to be better but only because you want to improve your work. The rest will need to have the responsibility and the respect to accept the context that surrounds you now.
4. Keep learning. Read documentation, do some tutorials, take classes, code for fun but never stop learning. I know we are juniors. I know the more years of experienced you have, the more skills you will get. Take your time, not everyone learn the same way, do the best you can do.
5. Be honest. If you can’t do something, you can’t. It’s not the end of the world. It’s true that in the companies the reality of time is different. They will push you as much as they can to encourage you in different ways. But there will be times when things go as certain ways that we didn’t expect it. There are seniors who doesn’t estimate well and that doesn’t define them. The valuable thing is to be committed and to keep learning when things goes wrong.
6. Don’t be block for too long. This is something that we all deal with when we develop. We want to resolve things by our own and this is great, gives you the chance to challenge yourself and to work on your independence. In the best case, you will have as much time as you want to solve an issue and if you can’t, your team will help you anytime. Another scenery (the usual one), everything will be on fire so the faster we solve things, the better.
7. Velocity. The less junior you are, the more your team will push you to improve your skills. How fast you resolve things could be one thing to improve. Don’t get frustrated. There will be cases, when there is no time, your team works fast and fluent and you will be the tiny junior trying to make things nice but not enough. This could take years of experienced. Even the best developers of the world need to improve things. “Rome wasn't built in a day”, stay humble, don’t give up and keep motivating yourself.
8. Communicate. I keep saying that communication is the base of everything. Sometimes you make a lot of effort by your own, but you don’t show off about it. So people could decide to think that you don’t do enough. It’s not easy to trust, the whole team has the responsibility to connect each other and to show humanity. Many things could change if we could communicate better.
9. Find your strength. Biology and love is an amazing thing. I'll assure you that these two will guide you and will give you the strength you need to overcome any burnout. As soon as you feel passionate about something. May the force of your baby belly be with you.
DECLAIMER:
This is not the constitution. Everyone could have their own personal list. It's a way to share my experience in order to inspire others to do so.
Happy coding! :)
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