Truth is half the time if not all the time, I’m not sure what I am doing.
The first month I was getting familiar with how things are done in the organization, reading the code which I didn’t even understand. Watching tutorials of the system to see what am I gonna be dealing with. I wanted to code sooo bad, I mean I’m hired as a software developer why the hell am I not coding?
I watched the tools they use, visual Studio, asp.net , VB ,C#, Json, APIs, postman ... I took my free time to learn these because ... imposter syndrome was also hitting your girl real hard. I became consistent in learning, asked stupid questions. Yes, I did this to get better at my job, but above everything I did that to get confidence in my work...
I was so nervous that they will see I don’t know what I’m doing and just fire me, so I needed to get better for the time I’m there so that if I do get fired I can still find a job elsewhere, showcase my skills that I learnt the time I was there. I was desperate to learn, I worked everyday, every night, even during weekends. When my team lead couldn’t explain or help cause he deals with a lot, clients and devs, local and international...I’d just ask other team members to help. For this four months I am doing All I can to “breath just above the water”.
The second month we got in pairs, well, I think a team of new people who both are clueless is tough, it’s like sending two blind strangers on a treasure hunt in the woods. Yes, you want to find the treasure but you also want to be the one that finds it, trust is minimal, my team mate and I would work on the same thing like it’s a 400m race, who ever gets there first...not trusting what he said , me not trusting his instinct as well. So... ok bro do what you think is right I’ll do the same, and we will use whatever works.
That’s one thing I learned early ... trust is important in team members. Well, our team leads both helped us with trusting each other...eventually got there.
Later on came, “working from home...”
What a challenge it was at first, but eventually I got to love it, saves money, I mean...jnrs don’t get paid a lot y’all know. So this was great for me financially, no transport money and no lunch money. It was a blessing I didn’t even know I needed, I worked twice as hard, I managed to solve my tasks by myself.. with lil help from my team leads and YouTube and stack Overflow lol ..I have to admit solving a task from stack Overflow makes one feel like a bad ass...that’s senior devs platform.i got to have confidence in my self...and that might not be good enough, but it’s good.
All I have to say is ... four months later...I grew, I adapted and thanks to supportive team and family...I am definitely at a better level of “I don’t know anything”. Team members that will get stuck with me and try to solve a problem, which also they have no idea of, was kind of enough for me. Learning that it’s okay to not know everything but just give your best ‘try’...you might ‘catch’ a big fish;
Discussion (2)
Really enjoyed reading all your posts! Would love to see a post about how you got your first job - how long you had been learning coding, about interview process etc.
Thank you Laura, would love to do it someday. It wasn’t an easy process for me.