What do you wish you knew when starting your last gig?

There is a lot of content written from a dev manager's perspective on how to increase the chances of success for a new developer.

I'd like to flip the script for a moment and ask what are the things you as a developer need to know to be successful when starting a new job/project? What are the things you want to accomplish day one? Week one?

I suspect the answers are not going to be "I wish I had more standards documents to read".

Comments

[Tracy Holmes]

Editing this to provide a bit of clarification - I'm currently in school to up my developer game, but my current/most recent position is not a dev position.

1. The consequences of not being able to devote a major portion of my time to learning to code. I went from being a full-time student to a part-time one, and I was not ready for the change.

2. Because of where I work, when I (finally) finish, I don't actually want to see code because I'm learning at the same place I work.

3. Helping others succeed at what you're trying to accomplish is hard. I have many down days.

4. Make sure you have someone to keep you accountable! Accountability partners are important.

5. Stay true to yourself, your mission, and your goals.

[Ben Halpern]

Great takeaways Tracy.

[Tracy Holmes]

Thanks!

[Lorenzo Pasqualis]

1. Understand the specific domain concepts. Build a glossary of terms used in the company, and become very familiar with them.
2. Understand who does what. Get a clear sense of who is responsible to do what, and start building a good relationship with your new co-workers.
3. Listen carefully. Observe. Study.
4. Understand what is expected of you, and exceed that expectation.
5. Be enthusiastic, stop worrying and have fun.

[Ross Bates]

Build a glossary of terms used in the company, and become very familiar with them.

I like this one a lot. It combines both practical knowledge & team culture into a format that's easy to digest.

At my last company any object that was "other" was called a 534. Why? Well because when we first seeded the database in week 1 of the company that was the index of the last entry in the table - the one we simply inserted by hand with the label "Other - Not Found". For the life of the company 534 was just shorthand for something you couldn't categorize.

Also, for those looking for a trip down memory lane. Let us not forget ESR's Jargon File.