Support perspective from a Developer

Landed My First Job

Grinded non-stop 6 months , finally landed a job in a well known tech company here in the Philippines

I Had Expectations:

As I was inspired by some known software engineer vloggers in Youtube
I expected to solve problems then build the fix and make it a reality

As what i learned during my 6 month sprint I expected what i was learning was what i was going to experience in work too

Rolled in as a support

I expected I was to develop some JS as I got in as a Node JS developer

• I was placed in a boot camp that was teaching a software called IBM MAXIMO had little to no code (during my bootcamp)

• when got rolled in to my project I was rolled in as a support

• Basically we had the following tasks:

  • there were reocurring task like capturing logs, inventory snapshot and etc..
  • then there were tickets handling
  • tickets that been sent out from users stating an unexpected event during their time using the software
  • as supports its our task to investigate what happened , why it occured, and how to prevent this error to reoccur
  • issues were more like queries of users asking why this and some were as easy as data correction ## Sadly I've Realized This Wasnt For Me Near a year i've been debating myself if this was what i wanted for months i have kept it to my self. > Which backfired me to close to burnout even have plans to resign on my first job without even reaching a year!

Luckily I had coworkers who checked in on me time to time especially on times I seemed off : with that I had the encouragement to open up my feelings with proj manger

The Little Chat with My Project Manager:

Opened up, right at the start of the conversation, as I was told before to remove the heavy stone first.

He started off thanking me for oppening up

Because most people dont open up and aren't aware we can actually take action to fix like

• moving to a different project that has the tech I wanted to work
• or stay in the same proj but transfer to a different team

Thanks for my proj manager i was given the opportunity to move to development

• and when my first day started as a developer: it gave off a different a flame
• in terms of eagerness , the fire rekindle back in
• and since then I promised myself to not keep my feelings and speak up to others to get insight and not be blinded by my own

Support vs Development

The Same

actually Support and Dev aren't really that different, its funny how we are actually going through the same process:

• requirement gathering
• forming the solution
• development of solution
• testing in differnet environment
• get it approved from higher up
• then get it moved to prod

The Difference

• Support
  • is more of a : fix the issue that is blocking the user to work
• Developer
  • to modify application to suite the users needs and wants

Advantage of Support

• Learn empathy with the user and learn how to build relations with user
• Learn Data Correction and Data Analyzing
  • when i entered I had no former trainning of SQL but as Data was important for the user and for the support to understand on where it was changed or modified
  • it was a great asset to get use to SQL
• Learned debugging skills
  • when it comes to support, it isnt about memorizing every solution for every issue
  • but atually its about understanding the system and learning how to take advantage of tools to debug and pin point what caused the issue
• Learn the Importance of Documentation
  • as time to resolve issue is as important, documenting a possible to reoccur issue helps future support members to be able to answer right away or look in the right place

Summary:

Despite I spent months in a role that I didn't like, but I'm thankful I did

• as we should see every situation an opportunity to learn
  • as in some cases those dreams isn't reachable switch where when we want we can just switch right away
  • I was lucky I had a understanding project manager and had an open slot for Dev team
  • In cases of options are limited, I suggest learn as much in where you are
    • as I can assure you, you may say the learnings arent profitable
    • I can assure you you will learn something there that will be handy in your next ventures