“Always apply for a job even if you only meet half their requirements. No one can fit them all, you can learn.” – A lot of people
When I wrote about Mental Shifts in development, it also had made me think about how much I was learning and struggling at the project I was working on.
I had interviewed and accepted this job based on the skills that I had, and my ability to learn new things. I knew that it was going to be a big shift for me, going from a developer who was not really a developer to an actual developer. Despite the amount that I have learned in the last ~3.5 years, I still have a lot to absorb. All devs do, but after many, many years of learning something new for work (or fun), more experienced devs have a better handle on time it will take for them to learn a new language or framework.
I am not there yet.
The project I was jumping into is written with Angular. A framework I had only done half a tutorial on, and then Angular2 was already hanging over the project’s head. In addition, although neatly formatted, the comments didn’t really give much information to why X was implemented in Y way in many different cases.
I wonder if the person who wrote this #JavaScript f(x) had this in their cubicle would've written this in >1 line pic.twitter.com/6XVEV0bHRR
— Jenny Rasmussen (@codecraftscraic) December 14, 2015
It has been a headache and a half, but the amount of learning that I have done has been incredibly valuable. There is something to be said for learning by jumping in the deep end, and panicking before learning to swim.
Even though this has worked out, and a lot of growth in careers and jobs comes from someone saying to you, “Here, this needs to be done by Friday.” you should still be cautious to not get taken advantage of or overwhelmed. Noticing the signs for that is as hard as realizing that you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.
Every new job is a place for growth, as is every project. Don’t be afraid of the deep end. With that in mind, some notes:
Be able to say no. If you don’t know how, learn.
Be able to say, “when” (or ask for help). This is a moving target, you’ll learn as you go.
If you see someone you supervise struggling, do not tell them to give up and let someone else do it, ask them how they are feeling about the project. Offer them help.
We all get better when we work together!