Hello Everyone,
My name is Mona and i am 1.3 months old software engineer.
I am not a pro, so this post objective is to share how it has been for me being a developer.
Throughout my developer phase, I don't know why, the only thing that comes to my mind is to finish the task as soon as my manager assign it to me. I have tried to not think like that but it has not helped me. I guess, i am naive and want to show that i do things quickly, but nobody knows that to do it quickly, i spend hours more than others and often ask for help for little things.
Most importantly, during this i 'forget' to learn and improve myself and therefore it is taking more than expected time to improve as a software engineer.
How on earth, i can get rid of this feeling? I really need to stop this but i dont know how.
and please, if someone is also going through this mentality, i say dont do this and destroy yourself.
If anyone has gone with this stage, please leave your comment and share your journey.
Top comments (3)
I assume your team has these refinement meeting, where the goal for the team is to estimate each task you have in your backlog.
Usually, the estimate is done for the required effort for each task, but I've seen teams that estimate the required time for each task. Whichever approach you use, in the end you should have an idea how long it would take for a task to be completed based on the estimation.
Now, the important thing for each task is to be finished in time based on the estimate. Which means, you have to shift your mindset from finishing as fast as I can to the idea that I should finish in time according to the estimate. If you think businesswise, it is way better to take up the time you have to double check your work, write more tests, make sure your code is readable, etc. than finishing fast and introducing a bug or providing subpar work.
Next time, think about providing quality work instead of finishing fast. Your manager will thank you later on.
I think the first thing to realize is that you shouldn't compare yourself to others in terms of development quality/speed. Everyone learns at different rates. And likely your colleagues have way more experience than you, but even other new hires may operate at different speeds. It takes some time just to learn the codebase and getting used to the work processes. You have only worked for a month and is still getting used to everything. It may take months or maybe a year before you feel you are fully productive. For me it took probably a year to get comfortable with the technologies and the codebase because there were so many new things to learn.
Don't see asking for help as anything bad. I have yet to meet a developer who did not enjoy answering questions and explaining concepts. Take notes and learn from them. Ask about things you encounter in the system/code even if it's not directly related to your current task.
Accept that they hired you knowing there will be a learning period. As a junior developer you aren't expected to work at 100% capacity from day 1.
It may also help to discuss this with your manager so you can hear their expectations directly from them. Or maybe your team or a teammate depending on who you feel you can easily talk to.
I got no special story,
when I was 13 I decided to start learning how things work and got myslef into programming. my first year wasn't that good. I literally started in phone. then when I was 14 I got my laptop and now its been 2 years.
btw Welcome to DEV community Mona ^^