What is the experience of being a junior developer REALLY like?
Posted by Ok_Revenue_57@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 43 comments
I am going to hopefully enter the job market in a year or so, and I would like some perspective on what being a junior dev is really like, company specifics aside. Thanks!
JinxFae@reddit
I started a month ago. I feel stupid and dumb. I feel like in not made for this because I can’t understand anything… I just hope this is normal.
PositiveParking4391@reddit
practice attention to detail and learn to become detail oriented as long as your team lead likes it 😂
When you're handed documentation or onboarding materials for a codebase, treat them like a gold mine. Those logic flows and execution paths are the blueprints you’ll rely on for your entire tenure at the company.
if you practice above enough than you will gradually become good at tasks
_Stretch@reddit
Hey, I've been a developer for about 6 years now. Same place and I felt this way too when I first started. Every now I may get a ticket that comes my way every few months where I'm like "What on earth are they talking about". It does get easier with time. Looking back when I started, I was really only expected to show up and ask questions when I didn't know anything. I started off on easy tickets that were simple bug fixes (anything from fixing typo in responses or adding a if statement for edge cases,writing tests etc) and eventually once you get used to their product and systems you can take on bigger tasks.
In short, yes that is normal. Just try your best to figure out something on your own but if you are still stuck after an amount of time, reach out to a colleague. That being said every place is different but generally speaking, the good places will try and help you grow.
Kane_ASAX@reddit
The company I work for now does the opposite. They start off with small,very minor things. Like creating an html file with no javascript, or generating a birthday calendar through python. Slowly they got the essentials down and then they just throw you in on a huge but low priority ticket. In my case it runs through 3 repositories and touches another one too. Then they chip in once in a while to show something. Like how to create a mutation or what the core security needs to be. It took me like 4-5 months to get the feature shipped and inbetween they might give smaller tasks. I turned a repository with a singular feature into a document generation machine with multiple templates, the ability to convert file types and able to merge data from our database into the files. All generic too. So it can be used for tons of stuff. And its my feature
ViolaBiflora@reddit
If I may, because I start my .NET apprenticeship soon. How much are you expected to know and be fluent? I've written nice stuff of my own, but nothing extraordinary. Sometimes I still mix reference\value type, depending on the task and the outcome.
Am I expected to know pots of design patterns already, or is It something I actually learn there? I'm quite scared.
JinxFae@reddit
That depends on the company. Mine is very understanding and everyone uses AI for most tasks. I was also scared and was studying as much as possible, trying to memorize every single line of code. I can tell you right now that was a waste of time (after the technical interview). No one works like that, no one has memorized every single line or every single function. The sooner you realize and accept that, the better for your mental health.
ViolaBiflora@reddit
What language are you using at work if I may?
JinxFae@reddit
Right now I’m mostly working with java
RainbowGoddamnDash@reddit
You're ok.
The main thing you should be focused on is when to ask for help. If you think something is blocking you, ask for help.
InfectedShadow@reddit
Completely normal. Also the feeling doesn't go away. You just learn to manage it better. It's always fine to say "I don't know" as long as it's followed by "but I'll find out"
Fuzzy_Garry@reddit
Dutch Junior SWE here.
Depends on the company. First job and year in the field was a nightmare. The senior was yelling at me every day, etc. PIP and terminated. They said I was incompetent and dysfunctional.
The impostor syndrome was raging in my head, and I thought it was the end of my SWE career.
Ended up finding a new job where the culture was much better: Friendly culture and a nice team. After one year there I felt as competent as my peers (although I still have so much to learn).
jorjiarose@reddit
you have to be patient, a lot of tasks look though and uphill at the very start
Luann1497@reddit
Pretty much constant imposter syndrome and googling basic stuff you feel like you should already know. The trick is realizing every senior dev went through the same thing and still google things daily. Youre not dumb youre just new. It gets better eventually.
normkell@reddit
Been doing this for 30+ years and the honeymoon phase is my favorite part. You should stay as chill as you can because you may be done with college but you aren't done learning. If you are like me, you will be learning for the rest of your life. Learn the process of your team. Learn the project management. Learn the code. Learn the systems. Learn how it all fits together. Learn the coding requirements. Learn how to submit and review code. Unless what you're working on is patented or proprietary, it's all transferable knowledge to your next gig. Me personally, I am a generalist and go where others won't. I dive into servers, databases, cloud storage or servers, backend of client, frontend of client. Most every job listing is for a niche dev but every company needs a generalist. The best teams are made of all generalists and goes so smooth unless we need a specialist which is rare. Use this time also to develop you. Learn what you like about the process and what you don't like. I look for pain points for programmers and bottlenecks. Solve problems for your team. Develop your own code style from the company's code style. Develop that further in your personal projects. If you find that you like one particular area, maybe specialize in that if you think it's marketable. Code ownership, become steward of the code you write and always be ready to dive in and show how you code works. Be confident in your work. Look for opportunities to take the lead! If you volunteer to head up a new feature with a group of 2 or 3, build that leadership and that will pay dividends sooner than later. I assume that some of your schooling has prepared for some of the more popular solutions to enterprise problems if not, learn it all. Afterall, the senior dev that was just hired has to learn it all too but may have seen certain implementations before while you are learning it for the first time. Learn, learn, learn. I hope this helps.
Imaginary_Peace_4724@reddit
What if we look at this situation from a different angle?
amir4179@reddit
A lot of staring at code and thinking why does this even work.
Then changing one tiny thing, breaking three other things, and spending half the day figuring out why.
Also tons of reading docs and old tickets just to understand what the system is doing. That part surprised me the most. The actual coding sometimes feels like the smaller part.
But when something finally works after hours of confusion, that feeling is pretty great.
alexppetrov@reddit
I was being overwhelmed, but also curious, eager to continue doing more and more stuff, didn't think about tech debt, afraid to ask questions, as to not sound dumb, overconfident in some areas, under confident in other, had small tasks at first, and at my first "big" task I was so proud of it (it was a slider component), learned a lot through bug fixing, learned to say my opinion instead of hiding, learned how the whole dev process works (from requirement gathering all the way to post deployment care), failed so many times and broke prod a few times, things were overdue, or a mess because I wanted to finish faster, at the end I made a ton of contributions to many projects because I wasn't afraid to try, every failure made me learn something new, it was just consistent effort and the rewards were to see actual things being used by actual people, not just hobby projects.
It depends on where you land, but take whatever you can and continue growing.
SendHelpOrPizza@reddit
ngl it's a lot of feeling really dumb a lot of the time lol. tbh you spend like 80% of your day googling stuff and hoping nobody notices.
Forsaken-Device-6093@reddit
I’m about to start a position as a senior, that feeling of feeling dumb never goes away. Well it hasn’t in my case anyway.
gazpitchy@reddit
I've been a senior for a few years now, it still doesn't go away.
AggressiveBench7708@reddit
Ha. I was going to say being a junior developer feels like being a senior except you get paid less 🤣
present_absence@reddit
Lol glad this is the top comment
Cool_Thought_4308@reddit
The "hoping nobody notices " part is extremely real
InfectedShadow@reddit
Why hope no one notices you googling? Literally part of the job. Id be more worried if I didn't see a junior dev googling shit.
present_absence@reddit
You're going to be given some kind of little tasks by the seniors. Like... see how this app has a text box here and a button here? Add another one of each. You'll look at the existing code, maybe look some stuff up. You'll ask the seniors a bunch of questions like... what tools do you use, are there code standards, do I have to do all the docs I learned about in my software engineering class. They will laugh and say no just make another button. This will take you 3 weeks. When the seniors review your code they will give you tips and suggestions to make sure you're doing the right stuff.
jbldotexe@reddit
"Company Specifics Aside" is unfortunately arguably the biggest chunk of junior dev work.
The majority of the time, getting your first full time gig somewhere, especially as a known junior will be to literally learn their company-specific system.
Essentially you will be discovering the spaghetti that the other more senior engineers are already familiar with, along with minor tasks here and there.
Mine was a full stack mixed batch. Wore a handful of hats and most all of it was "Company-Specific" stuff that I couldn't have performed without being there and asking questions along with my own digging in the landscape.
But it also varies. Completely. Depending on the size of the company the scope of your access may be much more narrow or open. It really seriously depends.
sir_sri@reddit
It really depends on the type of team you're on.
I was running a co-op programme for 10 years, which indirectly led me to do the employer relations stuff.
Student jobs range from "Hi, we have no idea what we're doing, you and 3 other students or fresh grads get to create our new inventory system" to "you have three days to familiarise yourself with this 200 page document of very precisely written documentation that exactly outlines what we need every function to do, after on day four you start on page 1 and work through as much as you can, anything you can't do there are 3 tiers of people you can escalate to ask for help from".
Every team and their level of competency is different, as are their needs.
Sometimes they're hiring you because they expect you to have some competency they don't have, or that you will have time to learn. Right now the hot thing is AI, a few years ago it was VR, or web dev frameworks or whatever. In a business like that, they have a system that works, but they don't have time to look into new tech, and they need to bring you on board to do that for them.
Sometimes they have a whole team of developers, and you're just another cog in a machine where they know what they want, what they don't have is time to implement it themselves.
Sometimes it's just a couple of very heavily overworked people that are underpaid, and they desperately need someone new to pick up the slack they can't do.
And a lot of other things. Employers are very heavily biased by the experiences they've had too. One of the things we learned the hard way at a small university is that a bad experience 20 years ago with a single very poor (and or very dishonest) graduate can leave a legacy of distrust that hurts fresh hires decades later.
dialsoapbox@reddit
Worked full stack at a startup.
Much freedom to take charge of things (with overview).
It was fun cause some weeks I'd be doing frontend, some backend, some other things.
But sometimes the hardest thing to deal with were people. We had this other pompous jr dev that made things difficult for people because he tried "fixing" things, only to make it worse, like introduce bugs.
In the end it didn't matter, we were all laid off.
ContestOrganic@reddit
You find our there is a lot more to software engineering than writing code. Version control (git). Working with others on branches. Communication with colleagues. Figuring out when to ask for help vs when to keep struggling. Getting a task and having NO idea what this even means. It's a slippery slope but you'll do great 😊
Jacomer2@reddit
I imagine it’s going to largely depend on your team. I’m a junior, approaching 1YOE, I work in defense through a contractor. It’s been great here. Project leads are very helpful and have reasonable expeditions on the timeline of getting things done.
I feel clueless a lot of times still but each day I’ve felt less so. I’d say just be prepared to ask a lot of questions, take a lot of notes, and absorb as much as you can. Hopefully you get a good team that is ready to help you learn.
Wyldewes@reddit
Feeling dumb and asking a lot of questions! But don’t worry any good team will help you encourage you to ask said questions.
Forsaken_Chicken_777@reddit
Constatnly feeling that you lack job security. Junior tasks are mostly easy so what really counts is how are you percived as a person. Its a constant feeling of being jugded and having no agency, youre in no position to make demands.
javascriptBad123@reddit
Being overwhelmed 24/7. The more you learn the more you learn you dont know shit. Even as Senior youll be overwhelmed 24/7.
dcg808@reddit
1000%
h-gotfred@reddit
Its basically a daily fight against impostor syndrome, have to embrace that growth mindset.
Eyerald@reddit
Honestly, a lot of it is just learning constantly and asking questions. In the beginning I spent more time reading other people’s code and trying to understand the system than actually writing big features. It can feel slow at first, but that’s normal.
CaptainSuperStrong@reddit
Lots of feeling like you have no idea what youre doing and that everyone else has it figured out. Spoiler they dont. The real skill is learning how to find answers and ask good questions without being annoying about it. Also the imposter syndrome never fully goes away, you just get better at ignoring it.
Pdog1926@reddit
I'll use construction as an analogy: in school you are taught how to build a whole house. Foundation, walls, roof, electrical, plumbing, home decor.
At work, you are thrown into a skyscraper that is already built, and you are tasked with fixing some squeaky hinges, or make a doorknob that will be used in dozens of places but in slightly different ways.
razorree@reddit
you'll be compared to AI all the time, and commented "AI would do that better than You" ... lol
joking :) ...but...
raegyl@reddit
When I was a junior 9 years ago, my senior asked me to fix the warnings for our app (basically removing unused variables, rewriting functions based on proper convention). Work was also interspersed with learning and reading up on the tech stack docs. We were generally well supervised but that's only because we were the first Juniors hired by this company (there were 3 of us).
JacoDeLumbre@reddit
Think it's going to depend on your team and organization really. I had shit bosses and incompetent coworkers before, but now I'm on a small team that rocks and is super efficient and everyone gets along. There's going to be as much of a wide range of experience as a junior as there is with any entry level job really.
I will say that AI has taken over everywhere. Got some buddies with corporate jobs who are basically being mandated to use AI tools and we too have been told to use them as well.
netwrks@reddit
It’s a world of assholes trying to steal everything you make for extremely low amounts of money, until one day you wake up and settle for a mediocre job title.
ExtraTNT@reddit
Depends, from “you don’t touch stage and prod, your contributions are only to internal tools and you have 0 responsibility” up to actually doing stuff that normally only seniors do, including architecture design, hotfixes at 2am, planing releases building entire systems from the ground up and choosing the stack with little to no help…
Best is the “you can do everything a senior does, but you get some additional reviews and your tech lead is not at 110% already”
But yeah, range can be wide, best is to get into a project and show that you care about the product snd contribute useful progress within your abilities… first few months the contribution is, that your knowledge about the product grows, then it’s hints on missing / wrong documentation… after like 3-4 months, you contribute documentation and some code on your own, after half a year, you start to influence the architecture on new sub-projects