Last year I got my first job as a fresher flutter app developer in a health & fitness startup, BTW this is a remote job. I walked in with a basic understanding of widgets & pet projects, but I was immediately met with a codebase that felt like a mountain. The imposter syndrome kicks in the moment you see hundreds of files and thousands of lines of logic, but I realized early on that this was my greatest opportunity to grow.
I managed mostly by connecting with the tech team, asking as many questions as possible to get clarity. I started reading the code line by line to understand exactly which part of the logic resulted in which feature on the app. This deep dive sometimes got me into frustration and also helped me unravel the "magic" behind a large-scale application, finally it gave me the confidence to start contributing my own code.
Got to know more about flutter and the use of different packages. All the files should be in a proper structure which is the folder structure. Got to know and implement clean code as much I could along with getting used to git, the state management and all. To change one code I have to go through a chain of files, tracing the call stack and then we get to see the original implementation and the dependency injection still fascinates me. Reading debug log and the skill to debug is a very important part it really helps me resolves bug as soon as possible. I occasionally use AI due to my laziness of searching manually on the internet (70% manual search & 30% AI for me now). This drops a bit confidence in me so until I learn whatever code the AI gives and those syntax I don't git commit, otherwise its hard for me to sleep at night.
Communication is also a crucial aspect in an organization. Connecting with technical and non technical teams helped me to know the overall flow of the organization and how the work impacts the business. Getting insights given by users is very rewarding , the feedback directly shapes the features I build. From Monday to Friday, it's war for me in a good way, we have deadlines, fix bugs and need to implement rapid changes. Its intense but because of my genuine love for programming the pressure actually makes the wins feel better. For resetting my brain I use Saturday and Sunday. Playing games and consuming internet media mostly, but still I do some pet projects and create some content as well. This clears my mental cache so I can return on Monday morning ready to climb the next peak of the mountain.
Thank you for reading my journey so far :)
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