Feeling like an incompetent junior developer
Hello all
I’m curious what passes as a good junior developer because lately I have felt terrible at my job.
I have yet to have a sprint where at least one story doesn’t somehow carry over (started in late August)
Every other engineer on my team is relatively new (all joined in past year) and yet I am the only one who seems to take a long time on anything.
Senior devs will take on 5-6 points in a sprint, and I will grab maybe 4, then I’ll basically have to work on weekends to make sure sure half my points are done.
I don’t know at all how I am doing, as my manager rarely has meetings with me, but when he does all I hear is “keep working hard” and “keep improving”
I have absolutely no idea if I am at PIP level performance or average, and the one time I asked about it my manager said “shoot to be a top performer”
I code on my free time and even make very small contributions to open source (think very small, like couple of lines), so I feel like I am a good programmer, but I can’t shake the feeling that if I can’t handle my career work then I can’t possible be good.
I also can’t tell what the other engineers think of me. They give constructive feedback, but for all I know they are annoyed at my inability to get work done. Im worried they think I’m lazy.
Sorry for the wall of text, I’m just venting cause I have no one to actually walk about this with.
Forgot blind tax:
TC : 98k
YOE: 5 months
comments
1. It's tough to gauge in your first job, but it could be the case that your manager is just a dick, or your company is a shit show, or your team has too much responsibility to manage. Obviously I don't know your whole situation but it just is possible. When I think back to how much I beat myself up in certain situations, I realize now it was mostly just bad circumstances. So even in the worst case (if you were to get fired or something), it's not the end of the world, don't beat yourself up, learn from the experience.
2. Do you know why exactly you struggle to make progress? Is it that your debugging skills are weak? Or some other technical skill? Is it that the code/tech stack for your team/company is super complicated? I'd encourage you to take a step back and try to answer those questions.
3. Don't be afraid to talk to your manager proactively about these concerns. Maybe others will disagree with this advice, and for sure you don't want to appear weak, but I think if you just approach it in a logical way in a 1:1 like "look, I have x y z concerns that I'm not as productive as I could be because I need to develop a, b, c, or I need d, e, f support from my team" I think your manager would likely appreciate you being proactive like that instead of just kind of floating (I floated in my first 1-2 jobs, didn't end well).
4. If you think you do just have personal skill gaps that need addressing, it's okay, this stuff takes years to figure out, that's why you're a junior! Keep trying to think very critically about it. Don't be afraid to come back to blind or speak to friends/colleagues with more targetd questions like how can I develop x skill.
5. If you like capital one then that's great, but even as someone in your situation, be aware that with enough study and prep, you could have a chance at landing a solid offer with a significant bump in TC at another company. Totally up to you though. For me, I wish I did that more aggressively earlier in my career (or just had a better lay of the land even as early as college, which you basically do since you're on Blind right now!)
Good luck out there. Feel free to DM
You are probably fine. Schedule a meeting with a senior engineer on the team and directly request feedback, but generally no news is good news. Learn as much as you can, don't make the same mistake twice, be friendly, and you will be golden.
Why are you having problems finishing the work? Is it lack of knowledge? Rewriting and redesigning? Code reviews come back with a lot of comments that require action?
Have you tried scheduling a meeting with your manager and talking to them about your work, your goals, and your performance? You don’t have to wait for them to schedule meetings for you.