Keep Your Head UP!
I remember my first job as a software developer. I had been hired while still in my last year university, and as a mathematics major it felt like the only way not go to graduate school, and the company put me through their boot camp — learning the JAM stack (Java, Angular, and MySQL). Afterwards, I began as a contractor for a major airline.
It was trial by fire, as I quickly learned my placement was not stable at all, and if our client didn’t want me then I would be let go. I didn’t actually know anything about developing enterprise applications. My title of full-stack developer made me sound much more capable than I could perform. My coworkers were very professional and capable, and they expected me to carry my load of tasks.
I dragged the team down as a new hire, but I knew I could do things the client would notice; I showed up first thing in the morning, I dressed like a manager, and I let everyone know how grateful I was to learn from them. Gratefulness went a long way for me, by showing I will do whatever it took in terms of grinding, and I would do it smiling. I quickly found senior programmers enjoyed taking the time to teach me. The people around me, actually liked working with me, and the environment became casual even though every moment seemed like a make or break situation.
Luckily, for the first month I worked on many proof of concepts (POCs), and a few small tasks for the UI portion of our product. The general manager of my department gave me a chance. I was tasked with implementing a new products feature, and tasked with presenting it to the other managers. It would test my ability to work alone, and demonstrate my being comfortable talking in front of my superiors. It was the chance I needed, and I loved it.
I learned three (3) habits from my leads, in my time proving myself as someone capable to jump from ‘boot-camp’ straight into a major airline.
- Always write out your plan and ask many questions about the specifics.
- politeness costs nothing, but gains everything.
- Always be ready to defend your reason for choosing an implementation.
I won’t say names, but let me tell you how not to act when at work. I had a good friend, and he joined along with me at the major airline. He didn’t take in the lessons our leads were trying to teach us. He did not write out anything. He was polite, but reclusive — he was not a great at conversation. When rubbed wrong in a discussion he’d become sullen, and tense. Slowly, work stopped being assigned to this young man, and although brilliant, it became apparent the client and managers had made a decision and were waiting for HR to make the next move. It was quiet in their approach at letting him go. One day, he did not return, and I pray he is with a good group of developers in a great company.
Getting fired, is not only by one’s own fault. I was eventually let go as well, but the sky had fallen. It was 2020, and Covid 19 destroyed the travel industry. We had all started working from home, and I knew I’d be cut first. I got a phone call from my manager and the client general manager, and I let them know how much of a pleasure it had been to join their teams as a fresh developer. I learned how to approach a problem, work with others in tandem to solve the problem, and most importantly… I can hack it as a developer.
For you, dear reader, I wish you to enjoy your time in the rat race as an engineer. Love the work. No matter if you have a job, need a job, hate your job, or thinking of changing careers. Love the code, the architecture, the life cycle, and enjoy your striving to learn it all. Everyday technology is getting better and better, just think about past developers that didn’t have dependency injection out of the box, or devops without CICD, or when all was ‘OnPrem.’ I would have nightmares about all the boilerplate code that must have been written. Today, I am humbled by this mountain to climb, and grateful to be on this journey with you.
