I started last Monday. Today it's been exactly two weeks.
Here's the funny part. I've spent 15 years in QA β manual testing, then automation, th...
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This was such a relatable read, especially the part about going from being the person who already knows how things work to suddenly feeling like βthe new guyβ again.
I think thereβs something really valuable in that experience. When youβve spent 15 years in QA, you naturally build a mental library of patterns β youβve seen flaky tests, weird regressions, production bugs, bad requirements, βit works on my machine,β and probably every variation of βweβll fix it later.β :D That experience is incredibly useful, but I also liked the way you described having to step back and actually observe instead of relying completely on that experience.
The AI angle makes this even more interesting. Weβre all getting used to tools that can generate answers, write tests, explain code, or even suggest what might be wrong. But knowing what to ask, recognizing when an answer doesnβt quite make sense, and understanding the context behind the answer still feels like a very human part of the job.
The distinction between knowing an answer and understanding why that answer is correct really stood out to me. Anyone (or anything) can give you a number, a test result, or a recommendation. The harder part is knowing whether that result actually makes sense in the context of the system youβre testing.
And honestly, I think being βthe new guyβ again can be a surprisingly good thing. It forces you to question assumptions that have become invisible over the years. Sometimes the person who has been around for a long time knows how something works, while the new person is the one who asks, βWait, but why do we do it this way?β Those questions can be uncomfortable, but theyβre often where the interesting problems are hiding.
Also loved the honesty in this post. It doesnβt read like β15 years of experience and now I have everything figured out.β It feels much more like, βIβve got experience, but Iβm still learning how to apply it in a completely different environment.β That mindset is probably more valuable than the experience itself.
And the idea of having to earn your way through the Stratagems was a fun touch. π It made the whole experience feel less like a checklist and more like an actual journey of figuring out how this new world works.
Really enjoyed reading this!!!!!!!!
Hahaha π Maybe in a few months, my refined agent will be the one reading and replying to these comments. But I will definitely forbid that. After all, reading and replying to comments is my favorite part right now. The new company is pretty great, and the boss is generous. Itβs worth sticking around.π
When I was feeling super down, I stumbled upon dev.to. First, I learned so much from Mustafa, and then from you. You have no idea how much Iβve taken your words to heart. You once mentioned that young girls shouldn't stay up too late, so I don't stay up late anymore. I've always preferred staying quiet and usually don't like talking to anyone, but I've talked to you so much, learned so much, and especially laughed so much! It really means the world to me. Because of you, I even got to know such a wonderful and wise person like Nnamdi, which also means a lot to me. That's why I only ever like seeing your comments and no one else's.
Thatβs so heartfelt. Iβve always believed meetings between people are fate, whether online or offline. Maybe we all spent time together in a past life. @ndcodes is incredibly wise. Looks like we all see eye to eye on this, hahaha.π
@ndcodes is incredibly wise
Really ππ»
Thanks Nnamdi And Lingfeng :D ππ»
@technogamerz @xulingfeng Hahaha, you two are going to make me smileπ
@technogamerz Divya, this is so very heartfelt; @xulingfeng said it best. Meetings like these really do feel like fate.
@technogamerz Divya, thank you for the kind words, but you're far too generous with "wise". I'm still learning every day, and a good part of that learning comes from you and @xulingfeng . Additionally, several of my Day posts have been properly corrected in the comments. I learn far more from this community than I share.
@technogamerz Divya, I'm really glad dev.to was here when you needed it. For someone who says she's usually quiet, you've made this corner of dev.to a lot warmer, and a lot funnier too.
@xulingfeng, you'd call this ηΌε. In Igbo, we say Mmadα»₯ bα»₯ chi ibe ya: a person is another person's chi, the helper of their destiny. Past life or not, nobody in this comment section got here alone.
Thank you both, truly. And I'm keeping your lunch rule. If one meal doesn't sort it out, have two. π€£π
Congratulations on the new job, my friend. π
But I have to say, after reading the Mark story, joining a company whose wall literally says βYour experience is waiting to be forged into an Agentβ is either excellent career planning or the beginning of Stratagem #37.
Please keep an eye on the documentation. If you ever find a file called xulingfeng-final-v2.agent, donβt open it. π
Jokes aside, I think you touched the most important part here: experience isnβt the 450ms value. Itβs knowing why 450ms existed, what assumptions made it correct, and when those assumptions stopped being true.
We are getting very good at extracting answers from experienced people. Extracting the boundaries around those answers is much harder.
And yes β finish the last six before they forge you. Some of us are still waiting. π
Congrats again. This sounds like exactly the kind of place where your QA background and your obsession with breaking AI systems can cause the right kind of trouble.
Hahahaπ€£, love this Stratagem #37 warning! Iβll keep a close lookout for that agent file. You hit the nail on the head: the numbers are trivial, the assumptions and boundaries are the real treasure. Rest assured, the final six stratagems will be published before they turn me into an agent π
"Time you steal up front gets paid back with interest, in rework and firefighting."
I really like this sentence, it applies on all parts of building a product not just testing!
Congratulations on the new job! I also have no idea what I am doing and I feel like a bit of an imposter every time I start a new job. π«£
Hahaha π Weβre all the same. A new place brings a fresh start. Especially for an introvert like me, asking my new colleagues that very first question is the hardest part. But it gets easier after that.
βI have no idea what Iβm doing.β made my day. π All of us, even with years of experience, feel like that sometimes. π
Haha glad this line resonates! No matter how many years of QA experience you have, every new codebase and team makes you feel that way at first π€£
Haha, this is day 2 of my new job. feels way more relaxed here.
Congrats! Enjoy the relaxed start at your new role π
Thanks! and congrats on the job too. wishing the best for you!
Those wall signs next to the Mark story are a wild coincidence. Good luck at the new place and with the last six stratagems! π
Thanks a lot! It really is such an eerie coincidence. Iβll keep pushing forward with both the new job and the remaining six stratagemsπ
Great text, Lingfeng! Oh yes! After working at startups and then moving to a big corporation, I've definitely learned to appreciate the slower pace too! π
Thank you! I totally get that. A calmer pace really helps with deep work. π
Glad to see you're finding you sea legs π adapting to a new company is always a tricky one, especially trying to fit in, instead of making them fit to you. You're right on the 'it's probably just different' and the understanding part is where you make the difference. Some things you did before are arguably better, so it's up to you to identify what it'd replace before pitching it. Who knows, maybe they structure their CI differently, but you know that pattern costs more over time, because it tests unnecessary things and it's better to split it? The small things bring lasting value and lasting value is exactly why you were hired.
It's odd how some fear being replaced by AI, whereas some of us know it's inevitable and just want to make sure when it does, it wont make the same mistakes we did. That mental shift in the current AI space is exactly what keeps the industry growing at a stable pace. There has to be those who push back to make those who push forward prove their worth and it's essentially red-teaming π
You'll do great though, cuz it sounds to me like the company fits your ethos.
Then Iβll keep my fingers crossed for your new job. Wish you all the best. Praise what deserves praise, and complain about what needs complaining. Life is like a play; we have to act it well. The whole world is a big stage.π€£
Yeah, lets see how it goes. Wasmer Tech interview ended with me taking the file as a 'take home assignment', so I fixed the obvious and emailed it back. Then he said it's 'still a shallow analysis of the code', wanted it improved for high-concurrency and safe at scale, so did that and sent it yesterday morning, no reply since, so dunno if he's still reviewing or what, but either way I'm fine with it π We see what happens π€
Wow, it just hit me β what if theyβre asking you to analyze their real production issue?π€£
Oh they definitely did, but they didnt give me the context I needed to actually fix it properly. 2 methods, mmap_and_compile and compile. Neither with any context of what's being compiled. it returns a Module. The file is labeled as a package loader, so definitely something that needed work.
Now that the email has been sent, donβt keep dwelling on it. Carry on with your usual stuff. Take this rare chance to unwind and focus on resting up.π
Hahaha, two weeks in and you're already walking under signs that could have come straight out of your own story. π. Oh yeah! My Sensei is back.
You gave @technogamerz's thought book "fast is slow, and slow is fast" back in August, with the Tao Te Ching recommendation attached. Now you've landed somewhere that actually works that way, and I think that's a really good sign for a new job.
@merbayerp is right that the boundaries are the most difficult part. In Mark's story, the boundary was actually written down. "Do not reuse outside this context" was sitting right there in the migration docs. It still failed, because anyone without the context read it as a stale config comment. So the problem wasn't that the boundary never got written down. It was that a warning looks like noise to anyone who doesn't know why it's there.
That's exactly why the wall signs don't worry me on your behalf. An Agent forged from 15 years of you (Veteran plus Sensei) would inherit every note you ever wrote, and it still wouldn't know which ones are load-bearing. Your "understand first, judge second" rule is that exact discipline: treat everything as possibly load-bearing until you know why it's there.
Health IT in England has a formal version of this. Under DCB0129, each clinical safety control is recorded in a hazard log against the hazard it mitigates, and the log is kept live as the system changes. It's basically your 450ms note with teeth, meaning this one bites because I have lived experience.
And there's an Igbo proverb that fits your first two weeks perfectly: Onye ajα»₯jα»₯ anaghα» efu α»₯zα». The one who asks questions never loses their way.
No apology needed for the last six. They'll be better for the wait. Take your time, Sensei!π
Hahaha π Itβs almost like Iβm writing prophecies. I made up fictional stories, and then reality served me the exact same experience π. I really love that proverb, it makes so much sense. At work, never feel ashamed to ask when you donβt understand something. Many colleagues here are younger than me. Whenever Iβm confused about business logic or operations, I just ask directly. Grab a few meals together, and we quickly become friends, hahaha.π€£
Hahaha, then please give Mark a very happy ending in the last six, Sensei, just in case reality is still reading. π
And sharing meals is the proverb in action. The context that never makes it into the docs usually gets explained over food. Trust me, I have been in one of those hangouts!π
Hahaha, exactly. Many things get sorted out over meals. If one meal doesnβt work, have two. Lunch buddies are the most efficient team combo in a company.π€£
The "slow is fast, fast is slow" line is the whole thing. I've been shipping APIs solo for years and the days I skip edge-case testing to save 2 hours always cost me 6 hours in debugging at 2am. 15 years of QA and still admitting the first week looked like a mess β that's more honest than most career posts get. The real test is whether that startup keeps the slower pace once investors start asking about velocity.
Exactly. It feels like you save time up front, but you end up spending far more time fixing things laterπ. As for investors, I think a rushed launch that triggers piles of customer complaints would bother them even more, hahaha π Let the boss handle those headaches. Iβll just focus on doing my own job well first.
Coming in as the "new guy" after 15 years is humbling. At The Printing World, we see a similar learning curve when integrating new automated proofing systems. Sometimes slowing down to understand the baseline saves days of rework on the floor.
Thatβs such a great point. Slowing down to get the baseline right saves so much later workπ
Bro really said βslow and steadyβ and then wrote a whole essay π
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