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Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

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Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#1

Post by MathCodeLove »

Hey all! So I'm a self-taught developer and got my first jr position a few months back. I really enjoy programming, I didn't sign up for a bootcamp or follow any "0 to Employed" type course, I just did what I love and eventually got a job doing it - which I'm very grateful for. Yet... the job isn't what I thought it'd be.

I did some freelance work prior to this and those gigs involved me developing a full application for the client. They'd give their idea/requirements and I'd make it from the ground. up. I loved that. I love being able to see a program come to life in front of me. I love to start with that blank canvas and through sheer will and dexterity forming it into something beautiful. That's what I like about software development.

At my new job, however, I've been thrown into a massive legacy codebase and am given specific features to add to implement on top of this already incredibly complex monolith that I can hardly understand. The technology being used is actually pretty interesting and novel, it's not just another Java enterprise app or massive Angular webapp. But I'm not able to really create anything. Any productivity I could have is drained by just navigating the existing maze of code. I might get to add a new feature, but there's not true creation happening. None of those features are challenging or novel. I feel like I'm filling in a coloring book rather than painting on a canvas.

Not sure what the point of this rant is, I'm just a little frustrated. I was so happy to have the chance to get paid to do what I love, but I'm not loving what I'm getting paid to do. I'd try to find another job but I don't want to have short periods of employment on my resume and my lack of a degree or any other credentials would make it difficult to ever get to the interview stage. Any suggestions for how I can find passion in my existing job or how I could pivot early in my career so that I can get in at projects inception and be a founding developer?

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#2

Post by andrewfromx »

You are missing some low hanging fruit in this legacy project you’ve been assigned. Don’t just do the boring tickets you are asked to do. Of course that’s snor city. Instead do them but then also work on little tools to make the whole system easier to understand. Stop waiting for your boss to give you interesting tickets, invent them!

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#3

Post by MathCodeLove »

andrewfromx wrote: post #2

You are missing some low hanging fruit in this legacy project you’ve been assigned. Don’t just do the boring tickets you are asked to do. Of course that’s snor city. Instead do them but then also work on little tools to make the whole system easier to understand. Stop waiting for your boss to give you interesting tickets, invent them!

Good suggestion! I'm just a little skeptical as the job is remote and paid hourly. I submit my hours at the end of each week. I don't want to submit my timesheet and then be like "Oh hey yeah by the way these X hours are for something completely unrelated to what I was assigned. Hope that's okay." If it were salary based or something else I'd be totally willing to dive in but as is I don't want to ask to be paid for something that they may not have even wanted me to do.

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#4

Post by duped »

Talk to your coworkers to find a mentor who can help you. I have read this story before and the folks that don't ask for help (and learn their dev tools, both standard and internal) are let go regardless of whether they want to move on or not. Difficulty navigating code is the tell tale sign - if others are being productive and you're not, ask them what they are doing and how they work. You will learn the tricks and tools of the trade.

It's fun to start new projects because it's easy and there's quick payoff. That said, no one really has a place for a serial project-starter on their team and the majority of your work in your career will be like this. Learning how to explore and modify/test a large existing codebase is crucial not only to how we work on software, but also to learn how to build (or not build) new projects from scratch in the future.

That's not to say there aren't codebases that are easier or harder to learn, shops with crappy tools, or that there aren't awesome startups doing new things all the time. If you want my advice, I'd say stick around for at least a year to eighteen months and learn how to navigate and work in a big codebase with tech debt and legacy, because when you move on to start a new project you'll know how to avoid the pitfalls or how to deal with it as it arises in that project.

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#5

Post by MathCodeLove »

duped wrote: post #4

Talk to your coworkers to find a mentor who can help you. I have read this story before and the folks that don't ask for help (and learn their dev tools, both standard and internal) are let go regardless of whether they want to move on or not. Difficulty navigating code is the tell tale sign - if others are being productive and you're not, ask them what they are doing and how they work. You will learn the tricks and…

Thanks, all great advice. Really appreciate it.

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#6

Post by andrewfromx »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #3
andrewfromx wrote: post #2

You are missing some low hanging fruit in this legacy project you’ve been assigned. Don’t just do the boring tickets you are asked to do. Of course that’s snor city. Instead do them but then also work on little tools to make the whole system easier to understand. Stop waiting for your boss to give you interesting tickets, invent them!

Good suggestion! I'm just a little skeptical as the job is remote and paid hourly. I submit my hours at the end of each week. I don't want to submit my timesheet and then be like "Oh hey yeah by the way these X hours are for something completely unrelated to what I was assigned. Hope that's okay." If it were salary based or something else I'd be totally willing to dive in but as is I don't want to ask to be paid for…

Donate to them 20 gifted hours of your time. I’ll bet whatever passion project you make in those hours they will love and want to fund for real.

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#7

Post by MathCodeLove »

andrewfromx wrote: post #6
MathCodeLove wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good suggestion! I'm just a little skeptical as the job is remote and paid hourly. I submit my hours at the end of each week. I don't want to submit my timesheet and then be like "Oh hey yeah by the way these X hours are for something completely unrelated to what I was assigned. Hope that's okay." If it were salary based or something else I'd be totally willing to dive in but as is I don't want to ask to be paid for…

Donate to them 20 gifted hours of your time. I’ll bet whatever passion project you make in those hours they will love and want to fund for real.

Honestly not a bad idea. If I can find something I'm passionate enough about I think I'll do this. I'd be making something in my free time anyway - might as well make it something that could potentially make my time on the clock better. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Not liking my first dev job. Any tips?

#8

Post by noicebrewery »

duped wrote: post #4

Talk to your coworkers to find a mentor who can help you. I have read this story before and the folks that don't ask for help (and learn their dev tools, both standard and internal) are let go regardless of whether they want to move on or not. Difficulty navigating code is the tell tale sign - if others are being productive and you're not, ask them what they are doing and how they work. You will learn the tricks and…

THIS. Please ask your coworkers for help. If the company isn't a toxic shithole your colleagues will be happy to help out. Modern screen sharing, code pairing and mobbing tools have made doing this in a remote working environment incredibly easy, almost more so than in meatspace.

As for the massive codebase, try to specialise in an area and own it. Take lots of tickets around that module / namespace / whatever and you'll end up in a niche with lots of ideas about how to modernise, optimise or otherwise improve that code base, as well as teach you a lot about the companies coding standards and practices when you're ready to move horizontally into other parts of the code base. You will become trusted as an expert in that area and valued by your colleagues.

Large code bases are a reality in programming. All of your smaller app and websites are built on top of the massive code bases of your favourite JS frameworks, web servers and web browsers, which are built in operating systems that also have massive code bases. All of those code bases, by the way, started out small as well, and grew to meet bigger and more demanding requirements.

You are kneecapping your potential if you decide to stop at the software development equivalent of barre chords.

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