Don’t sabotage yourself!
If you get fired in 6 months, you will have six months worth of salary.
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Thanks, everyone!
Well, it’s done. Contracts are signed. My starting date has yet to be agreed on, but the plunge is officially taken.
If I crash and burn later on, I’ll come back here and share 
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“I’ve just had a call with one of their senior devs who explained to me that they would be happy to build me up over the next 6 months” - This right here says it all. They are willing to train you, to invest in you. You should go for it!
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What I would do to be in the position you are in. Embrace it and try. At the end of the day if it does not work you go to the next one this time with experience.
Take the job. No realistic employer can expect you to hit the ground and be fully functional. Each company has slightly different processes and there is a transition period.
It does not benefit for them to invest in you and get nothing. Normally the first 2-3 months of a new position are not expected to be highly productive. This is a transition period for you and allows you to get familiar with processes, projects, and the teams.
All you can do is try. Let them help you.
I did, I did, you guys!
Thanks again for everyone’s helpful advise and encouragement!
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I’m starting next week, so we’ll see how that goes. I’ll report back after a few days
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Hey Batjko, how did things go? did they take on the suggestion on a mentoring plan like mentioned in a previous post?
I hope they went well for you!
Well, I’ve started this week. And even though the interview and my coding test were all about node, the first thing they asked me to do was to work on an Angular app.
They know I’m not a front-end dev and don’t know much angular either, so I’m thinking they are trying to see how I can adapt and pick up what I need to learn.
I’m making progress, though not as fast as I’d wish. Everyone else in my team is definitely more experienced, but I make a point to listen well, contribute to discussions when I can and otherwise just try and get through the requirements I have been given.
It’s a small team though, with a very varied tech stack, so I get the feeling everybody is expected to know something about everything, which means It was a bit naive of me to think I could just be dedicated to Node stuff.
On the bright side, though, when I’m not stressed out, I enjoy the challenge. And if I can keep learning at a steady pace, I suspect I’ll start being a worthwhile investment for them in a month or two.
Even if they were to let me go again in 6 months, I reckon I’d have gone through quite the boot camp by then, putting me in an excellent position for the next role (apart from having to explain why my previous role was so short ;))
To answer your question, btw: There is no mentoring going on and it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards. On my first day I had to put together my PC from scraps, no one had arranged any accounts for me and I was lucky to get a key fob on the day, to get into the building the next morning.
Generally, there seems to be little structure, both in terms of procedures and administrative organization. But that’s in the process of changing, I hear.
That is not to say that I am being completely left on the outside. I do get included and everyone is very friendly and helpful when I need something. They just seem to want to see what I can do on my own first, is what I gather.
So yea, the deep end, definitely. But it’s been many years since I had to rise to a challenge like this; I clearly had become complacent in my old role and this is exactly what I was looking for… if I can keep learning quickly for the next few weeks and months, that is.
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I’m curious about what learning looks like in this context.
When you say you are learning Angular, how do you go about it? Do you have time at work to work through tutorials and mini-projects to get up to speed in Angular, or do you do that kind of thing on your own time?
If you don’t do tutorials and stuff while on the clock, how do you work productively while you get up to speed? Do you pair program with more experienced devs?
Well, I’ve been given a few small requirements, on an existing Angular app. So when I say ‘learning’, what I mean is specifically ‘learning by doing’.
I had seen the basic concepts before, but never actually worked with Angular. So what I did this week is basically trying to implement the required changes. That usually takes a lot of googling, for example for available angular modules to use, code examples how to implement them, how to do a certain element in Boostrap, converting example html code into Jade (did I mention that the app uses Jade? Luckily that’s fairly easy to pick up.).
For example: There is a table and they want the user to be able to select which columns to show via a button that brings up a popup with two panels (available columns vs visible columns), in a very specific way.
So I’ve spent the last 2 / 3 days trying to make that happen. I’m almost done with that part, I found that technically it’s just a Bootstrap modal with two columns and a multi-select element in each. But of course, that all needs to be wired together in Angular, so we’re talking a separate controller for the modal, handing data back between it and the main page, figuring out how to show and hide the table columns based on the selection made in the modal etc etc…
Luckily, the Angular and the ngTable and $modal modules/services/thingies come with provisions for that kind of thing, so the main problems were around putting all the different moving pieces together (How do I open a modal programmatically? How do I show/hide columns in the table? How does a multi-select element work? How do I bind the selection to data I can pass back to the table?)
So ‘learning’ in this context means just trying to figure out how to do what is being asked of me. A lot of googling, a lot of experimentation.
All the while, there’s also good house-keeping: versioning via Git, trying to follow John Papa’s styleguide best practices for Angular, commenting in the code and finally (I haven’t even started on that, yet): adding unit tests. How the heck do I do unit tests on Angular controllers and stuff? I know there will be tons of tools and good practice online so I’m not worried, but I just haven’t had time to look into it yet.
Come to think of it now, I can’t believe I’ve only been there for a week, but at the same time I have spent a whole week now on just a few rather minor elements on a single page of an application and I’m not done yet. I find it hard to gauge what my “velocity” (there’s a buzz word for ya) should be. How fast should I be able to turn this stuff around? Experience will tell.
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I need to add, btw: For some reason I haven’t figured out yet, I’ve been hired as a Senior Developer straight off the bat. I think, mainly because I have a background in software management and talk well about architecture and new technologies, and was able to deliver a coding test in Node so have some hands-on experience.
But that puts a whole different kind of pressure on me to deliver. I can’t just lean back and wait to be tutored like a newbie developer on his first job. There are non-senior developers who know a whole lot more than I do.
So my main challenge is really going to be to catch up my basic hands-on skills to a decent standard as soon as possible, while then also to somehow justify the “senior” in my title. I believe that will come into play with a new project being planned in a few months, which will be all about node and microservices, so I better be able to take a leading role on some of that stuff.
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Which city/country is this going on?
The UK. But why is that important?
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I wanted to know to see if could apply for a Jr. position but we are not on the same continent.
In any case, I hope you perform well and won’t have to look for another one anytime soon.
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Quick update, for those who are still interested:
So it’s been a month in the new job now and it certainly hasn’t been easy.
There really has been zero training, and I mean nada, zip. My questions get answered when I ask them, but otherwise I’m left on my own to figure things out. Mind you, not on anything that is mission critical and needs to be done ‘yesterday’ - but I’m also not left much to “just learn and figure things out for a while”.
I’m now in a scrum team responsible for apps (including web, mobile and soon also back-end node, although I have managed to sneak some node in already, anyway). Currently, we are tasked with providing a bunch of new features of an existing Ionic mobile app (has been in testing for a year, never rolled out), but within a week! This includes several new views, a new major feature using phone sensors and changes to the back-end server that the app communicates with… to be done by three people (only one of which has any experience with the mobile app or mobile development in general, and he isn’t even supposed to be a developer).
After that, the app needs a complete overhaul, in terms of UI and navigation and a few more minor features, plus one of those nifty tour guide features you get on some web apps these days… until the end of September.
You get the picture.
The time pressure is amazing. Or at least it feels like that to me, not having much of a reference to compare with.
Granted, I think it’s doable, given the scope we have discussed and agreed on as a team (we are allowed to push back if necessary), but of course there are expectations and our boss sees it as his mission to always push for the maximum he can get out of us and I don’t think anyone in my team has ever tried to find out what happens if that expectation isn’t met.
In parallel, the wider department is re-trying a proper scrum project structure, as they feel their previous ways of doing things didn’t quite work very well. Now, I have enough Agile experience so it’s nothing new to me, but the whole team adjusting to a new way of work obviously doesn’t help the required focus on the work for a while.
So we’ll see how the next month goes, but I can certainly say that it’s a massive learning experience in terms of technologies. After just one month there, I feel I went from almost zero to at least intermediate level of proficiency in Angular now, have learned a fair amount about the Ionic framework and along the way also learned about the actual business and technology the team’s development work is serving.
So I was after development hands-on experience and I’m definitely getting that. The impostor syndrome will probably stay with me for the foreseeable future, but given the speed at which I am obliged to learn stuff here, I might just get a lot more comfortable a couple months down the line.
There you go. Any questions, let me know.
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I’ve been following this post since I found it. In my opinion, you are in my dream position and I’m sure you’ll be pushed even further and get better. I wish you all the best. Also, would you mind sharing some CV this as you said you interview so well.
Thank you. I hope you’re right.
Regarding CVs… we don’t always get feedback when we get rejected or even when we get invited to an interview, right? But when I do they tend to tell me that they picked out my CV for an interview for a few reasons that keep coming up:
First, make sure you keep it concise on page one: easy and quick to scan over for no more than a few seconds (that’s all your CV usually gets, especially for highly sought-after positions). In short: Bullet points are good, long paragraphs are bad.
Then, do write an introduction sentence or two (again, keep it short), either on top or after your quick summary bullet points. But keep it informal. Don’t let anybody tell you that you need to write your CV like a business proposal. Most hiring managers (I used to be one myself) have developed a gag reflex when they start reading letters that could come from your insurance account. It’s generic! It immediately makes you look like just a drop in an ocean of indistinguishable nobodies.
Instead be witty! Though not in every sentence, just infuse some humor here and there where it seems appropriate. Where is it appropriate? Just imagine you’re talking to your uncle. You still want to sell yourself to him, but he’ll find it endearing if you pull a clever joke on occasion.
Essentially, you want to sound confident that you have what it takes, and a little informality can go a long way in giving that impression.
The other thing they always love is enthusiasm. Make it known that you are really looking to do something awesome! You want to build amazing products, use the greatest technology and can’t wait to learn and keep learning to become better and better. Motivation is highly underrated for CV topics. Feel free to just include a section somewhere that describes what you are looking for, and get excited about what you’re after!
The same is true for interviews, btw. Confidence paired with enthusiasm is the winning combination.
Even when I wasn’t picked after an interview, usually because I wasn’t experienced enough, the feedback I get (don’t be afraid to ask for it) is that they liked two things in particular:
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Love learning! The interview is the place where you can be honest about your lack of experience, but always add that you are a great auto-didact (if you’re not, become one!) and that you just love learning new and different technologies, digging into unknown material, becoming an expert in it and see what you can do with it.
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Know your material! Now, this is just simple studying. Surround yourself with the stuff you’re going to want to work with and just read everything you can get your hands on. For example, I started subscribing to a bunch of Javascript / Node-related newsletters, did a ton of tutorials on Youtube and blogs, made sure I know what the community looks like, what are current topics being discussed, which frameworks are popular and why…
Now, I am no expert on any of this and probably couldn’t code any real-world apps with any of them, but I had done at least one tutorial and read articles on almost everything out there so I knew enough about anything and everything the interviewers asked me, that I could talk about those things.
I could discuss the merits of full-stack frameworks like Meteor and the MEAN stack, I could answer whether and why I like React better than Angular, or what’s so neat about Node compared to, say, Java. I knew what Gulp and Grunt are about, have seen how Bootstrap classes work and versioning in Git was of course a given.
So while the first tip is really just about attitude, the second thing is all about immersing yourself in the subject matter, knowing the tools of the trade (enough to talk about them, not necessarily to really use them).
What that tells is 1) you indeed like learning about this shit, and 2) you are familiar enough with the technologies to be able to understand what your future colleagues are talking about, which means they won’t have to train you up on the very basics.
Know the most popular tools of the trades, and practice talking about them!
This is helpful as a learning tool as well: Force yourself to describe and explain a thing (the programming language, versioning, this framework or that one etc.), practice conversing about it, compare it with other similar technologies.
Imagine you’re invited to a party full of developers and you need to make sure you can at least understand what the hell they are talking about, perhaps even chime in on occasion.
I don’t know if that helps much? That’s at least the way I have been approaching things and in this, as well as my previous jobs, it’s done me well.
Good luck!
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