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Alex Morton
Alex Morton

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First Day as a Junior Developer

This post was originally published on January 5, 2021 on my blog.

Gooood morning! It's Tuesday and yesterday was my first day with the Orbit team.

I still feel like I'm walking around in a daze of 'Is this real?' because I feel like I'm in such a perfect place at this point in my life.

Yesterday was full of getting organized and oriented with everything. I'm so excited to be working in a team environment again. I've so missed that!

There's definitely some re-orienting on my end with regard to having a more fixed schedule of when to be fully on and off.

Thankfully, the team is super flexible.

It's so strange to think that it's only been one day since starting. My sneaky brain will try to push more negative thoughts into my consciousness like 'You should know this by now...' or things like that.

But that's false! Anytime any feelings of overwhelm start surfacing, I calm myself right down by reminding myself that absolutely nothing has gone wrong and that I'm exactly where I need to be.

On to Day 2. I'm working on getting my local environment set up - fingers crossed I can get it all up and running this morning!

I'm also going to be learning Ruby, Rails, and SQL. So stay tuned for that!

I'm looking forward to documenting this experience <3


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Top comments (15)

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zacharythomasstone profile image
Zachary Stone

I think the most challenging thing for a JR Dev is to overcome your own critiques, learn how to feel valuable to the team, and develop a good scale to measure if you are doing well. What I have learned in 4 years of being a Dev is that SR. Dev's that have 10+ years of experience, still have days where they feel like a noob, and they make the same mistakes as I do, just not as often.

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alexlsalt profile image
Alex Morton

Thank you for sharing this, Zachary!! I feel like overcoming my own critiques and learning how to feel valuable to the team are both things I'm going to need to work on and learn!

It's super helpful to see this type of perspective -- thank you again!!

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zacharythomasstone profile image
Zachary Stone

Your welcome! Look forward to seeing the impact you have on the Dev community as a whole. Love your writing, it's fantastic and approachable!

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alexlsalt profile image
Alex Morton

Thank you, Zachary!!! 😭

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milanlatinovic profile image
Milan Latinović

Hi Alex, I think it is great that you are writing about your experience as a junior developer and reflecting on it day to day basis. :) If you want, take some time and read through this article where I was sharing my experiences on how to start with your new dev jobs.

Link: dev.to/milanlatinovic/kick-startin...

This article is based on my own experience in multiple companies, teams, and projects. Hopefully, you might find it helpful or it might give you some new ideas or perceptions. Good luck! :)

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alexlsalt profile image
Alex Morton

Thank you, Milan! Going to read your post right now with a nice afternoon coffee :D

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milanlatinovic profile image
Milan Latinović

Fantastic, let me know what you think of it. I am always open for a friendly feedback! :)

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tracycss profile image
Jane Tracy 👩🏽‍💻

That's really awesome Alex. Congratulations on the job. 🤗

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alexlsalt profile image
Alex Morton

Thank you, friend!!! Appreciate you! Hope you have a great day today.

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henrybarreto profile image
Henry Barreto

Congrats, Alex! You will love Ruby and it's syntax. Success in the job! I hope as soon as possible I do a blog like this too. :)

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alexlsalt profile image
Alex Morton

Thank you, Henry!! Looking forward to Ruby!

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