Changing Teams advice

[devwalker]

Hello,

No journey is ever a straight line.

Actually began my journey here with freecodecamp where I got the coding bug.

In short, I needed to jump from my sales job into tech ASAP so ended up settling for a local Java bootcamp to attend here in person. My target was and still remains in web development. Unfortunately, there were no web dev or front-end bootcamps at the time.

So, I was able to get my foot in the door but not land in the type of Team doing the work that I’m passionate about doing. After 1.5 years as a junior enterprise Java developer, I’m pondering how I can make the move to one of our front-end teams(React please!). I was hired and put on a team with mostly mainframers and one unavailable senior java associate. Kind of stuck in a box doing work I’m not passionate about anyways.

My question is : How do you safely start the conversation at your current job that you want to eventually change teams?

Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to develop rapport with folks outside my team to start this conversation. With COVID, there haven’t been many social events… thankfully.

I’m great at getting to know people as I come from outside sales but here it’s like how do you get to know people that you might see on a Zoom meeting with 100 other attendees?

At the end of the day, I am grateful I was able to make the career switch and that I am employed during these crazy times. However, I must continue to strive to do the work I want to do.

Thanks for any advice!

[ArielLeslie]

Search job listings for your company (there may be an internal job listing resource).
Ask your manager how you can change jobs within the company.

If you’re on a team that works closely with a front-end web team, then you can talk about doing a gradual transition. Otherwise, you’re basically applying for a new job.

[devwalker]

Thanks! I guess I’m more concerned if my team leader will take it well that I’d like to change teams. Guess I will find out

Your suggestion about gradually moving to a front-end team is a great idea.

[ArielLeslie]

In my experience, managers who don’t suck prefer to know ahead of time that you are thinking about leaving your current role. That gives them the opportunity to make changes to keep you or have plenty of warning to make sure that they’re prepared.

A gradual transition from one team to another isn’t always possible, but I’ve seen it where developers are already working closely together and someone is willing to train/mentor.