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Demi Lee
Demi Lee

Posted on

Thoughts as a junior in her first real dev gig.

Rather than going on and on about my background, I'll try to sum it all up in the following sentence. I'm a neuroscience grad who got a job at retail banking but quit to pursue the glittery world of web development.

And here I am. After some schooling (yay Bitmaker!), I'm a full-stack dev at a major financial institution that uses Spring for their backend.

Truth be told, I learned React and Rails and had no background with Spring nor Java. But that's the beauty of this industry and why I was drawn to it in the first place. It's this never-ending pursuit of knowledge. And people in the industry embrace it! Learning is fostered and encouraged and as much as it sounds like it's for some grand, altruistic reason, it makes sense for businesses too. Who wouldn't want their employees to improve their skillsets and add value to the business? Right? C:

I'm sure it's never this sunshine-y in every company or team. Though, I'm truly fortunate that my current team is super patient with me and my development. It gives me more motivation to learn as fast and effectively as possible so that I can make meaningful contributions.

Having a seemingly endless number of resources online really facilitates growth. And with that, I'm happy I stumbled upon dev.to and will continue to lurk contribute for the many days to come.

Top comments (10)

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rhymes profile image
rhymes • Edited

Awesome! I'm glad you found a good place!

I see so many small companies looking only for mid to senior level positions but I think it's very risky as a business decision in the long term:

  • if such senior changes job you find yourself with one less developer and hiring a substitute takes time

  • you have no internal path for career growth. yes seniors still learn stuff and have to get better but the fact that they come to you later in their career means if they leave they take with them their knowledge and expertise. you create silos basically and if you call yourself a software company the minimal unit of devs on your core project should be two.

(not talking about startups here, just software shops that too many times end up delivering products late because they only have one dev)

With juniors learning for more experienced developer you both distribute knowledge and create a career path, even if the career path is just "i'm gonna be a senior one day" :-)

Last but definitely not least, a lot of people get better at their own jobs when they have someone to teach to or discuss with or learn from.

I've learned so much just by hanging around dev.to and commenting :-)

Long live junior devs :-)

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demileee profile image
Demi Lee

Haha thanks! Totally agree with this.

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Awesome that things are working out!

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demileee profile image
Demi Lee

Thanks Ben! It's pretty great so far :D

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primariumio profile image
Justin

Congrats on getting a great start. Development like most things is seasonal, sometimes it seems just perfect and at other times it presents some incredible challenges. Having a tame you enjoy can make all the difference.

Don't be afraid to speak up and challenge the status quo even as a junior!

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omawhite profile image
Omar White

I’m a junior dev too! I’m glad your experience so far has been so great! Here’s to hopefully more great experiences!

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demileee profile image
Demi Lee

Likewise! Cheers to that! :D

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maestromac profile image
Mac Siri

The learning never ends!

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david_j_eddy profile image
David J Eddy

Welcome to the club!

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noblebe4st profile image
Jeff Hall

Congratulations! Stay curious.