Landing your first job as a developer is an exciting moment.
Whether you’re coming from college, a boot camp, or teaching yourself, the job offe...
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That's an experience I wish I had. My on-boarding was a pretty intense day installing a bunch of tools I'd never heard of to do things I hadn't expected to be doing (and didn't know to what end I would be doing them). My first month was spent working alone in the far corner of a shared office because the company hadn't paid for a desk big enough for everyone to fit around.
It wasn't a good year.
Great post! I am also SO glad you put building confidence as your first point, I think that is absolutely crucial!
What does a Junior developer do in a situation where they get handed a project and all other team members leave the company? :)
Oh, that's a tough one @shiroihana013 .
That sort of depends on why everyone else has left the company, but, let's assume the best and that you'd like to excel in this position with this project at this company.
This is not an ideal situation by any means. Leading up to getting this role as a developer, I'm sure you've had moments where you needed to take control of your education and work through tough problems. Working as a developer, you run into less-than-ideal situations all the time. Don't see this situation as any different.
Lean on your good judgment. If you don't feel like you're getting support internally, ask the developer communities you are a part of (Meetups and places like Dev are great to find additional mentors!)
Communication is key. If you're worried about delivering something by a pre-determined deadline, tell the stakeholders as soon as you notice something might not be going as planned. Though it's uncomfortable, being honest about your shortcomings may be the best solution so that everyone understands where the project is at, what they can expect, and when they can expect it.
As I see it, the main difference between a junior developer and those team members that left the company is the breadth of problems each developer has been exposed to.
Feeling alone on a project can sometimes be a fast track to expose yourself to lots of problems very quickly. Soak up everything you can as you rise to this challenge. The skills you acquire along the way will serve you well throughout your career.
Good luck! :)
Yes, the project finished it's main development phase and we've entered more of a support phase. The other more experienced developers rolled off to new projects. I entered at a perfect time because updates aren't needed in a timely fashion. I've had a month now to read through the codebase and get a good understanding of how it works. I'm getting on a plane today to meet directly with the clients. So far I'm not doing too bad.
Excellent! As someone who trains interns, I can vouch for all of the above.
Hope in every company/every team are only people that trying to build the confidence of junior devs. If you unfortunately catch some idiotic "mentor" in your first dev job, you are done.