Hi all, #firstpost
I am, by education an Electronics Engineer. I started learning Data Structures and coding last summer, and landed a job at Amazon India through college hiring. I am pretty decent at writing code, but lack "formal-education" and exposure like internships, open-source etc. like my other peers.
Being extremely new to the world of software development, and soon to-be put in an important position, Can you please share some tips on getting early-wins in my career, and forming right habits that go a long way.
Thanks.
Top comments (3)
If you got the job you must be doing a lot right already!
Emphasize communication. Make it clear when you're unsure about how to do something and try to express yourself as much as possible. This will make it easier to work with you and speed up your learning curve and your career.
Congrats!!
If you know the software stack that your team uses, getting some basic familiarity with it will help a lot. Java is a pretty safe bet.
Getting familiar with version control systems. Git is quickly becoming a de facto standard.
Other than that, most of your training will be on the job. The hardest part will probably be the mental aspect: You're going into an environment where you're relatively new and the people around you are experienced. Make sure to fight foes like imposter syndrome by putting things in perspective and cutting yourself slack when you don't know something: It will come with time.
Don't worry about the formal education side of things. Once you start working at Amazon, you'll be surrounded by people who will encourage you.
The main thing to remember is to ask the questions when you're stuck. If you don't understand the answer, just say so and have the answer worded differently until you grasp it fully.
You won't be thrown into the deep end. You'll spend several weeks learning the "Amazon" way of doing things so you can use this time to absorb as much information as you can.
My final tip is to start building your network within Amazon as soon as possible.
Get to know plenty of other SDEs and stay in touch regularly. Especially at first, everything will seem complicated but everyone else there has been through the same thing.
I hope this helps