Being a Junior Software Engineer. What is the best thing we can do?
Currently, when I write this article, I have 1+ years of experience as a Software Engineer, specifically as a Backend Developer. I’m still considered a Junior Software Engineer. In Software Engineering (SWE), in most places, a junior level usually takes time until 2 or 3 years of experience. While more than 3 years commonly considered as an Intermediate level. And more than 5 years is considered as Senior. But it varies in every country and even in every company.
For me being a Junior Software Engineer is a golden period in my career to learn more and more about Software Engineering and the business itself. What is the best way to learn as a SWE? For me, it is to learn from the Senior. You can learn from the internet, courses, Bootcamp, etc. There are plenty of sources to learn SWE. But learning from the senior is different. You learn directly from the experience. The experience itself whos are valuable for me. You can learn other people’s experiences only by hearing them or looking at them while they spent years and probably took great effort and rare privileges to get that experience.
Well, it is not that you ask everything to your senior. What I mean is that you learn the pivotal aspect from them and you can expand the knowledge from other sources like the internet, courses, etc. This slightly answers the question “Where do I start to learn this?” or “What things should I learn to understand this?”.
And another important aspect is that they can directly guide or explain it to you, and you can directly ask them. The skill of how to ask a good question is also the key to getting the knowledge that you need. Think about what you need to know, find out yourself first so that you don’t waste your time and your senior time because you asked a question that easily can you get from the internet or other places. Once you get the big hole from your question, the hole that became the root of your understanding, try to ask them.
Consider them as a mentor, well in Bootcamp you got a mentor too right? But the important aspect to getting a Senior in your job is to face the real problem in the industry. Not only do you learn directly from the industry, but once you solve it, you’ll have more satisfaction and sometimes a real impact on the business itself, the company, or even the society.
So what my suggestion to my fellow Junior Software Engineer is, try to find a company that has great Seniors. Well, where do you know? For me, it can be seen from the company’s engineering culture. Which for us as an applicant, we can see it in the hiring process. First, you can see how they define the role and describe the job requirements and job description in the job vacancy. Are the tools/programming language they use is the best option in their industry and have a bright future for you as a Software Engineer?
Well, the choice of programming language is sometimes just about the preferences of the company. It is not that one language is better than any other language. Sometimes there is another aspect like what language is most of the current engineers familiar with? And things like they prefer to code “this” way rather than “that” way which is only can be achieved in a certain programming language.
Programming language is just a tool
But in my opinion, the best choice for a team or division in the company that developed a web service is Golang, Java, or Node.js. And you can see from other tools like what is their Cloud Platform choice, databases, and other tools. And you can find out are they implement Microservice or not? because it is obvious that the company that uses Microservice it is has a big business running. Because it is what Microservice is used.
And another aspect is that you can see how their HR or Recruitment Team treat you during the hiring process, how was the interview, etc. Is it professional and makes you comfortable as an applicant or do they just act arbitrarily?
The last thing, you can find out from their business itself, it is great in the current situation and not dying? and does it have great potential in the future? So that you have no visible threat of being laid off in only 1 year or something.
There are plenty of factors but those are the factor that I can share with you. Do you probably ask why we don’t just chill? Enjoy the process and not too enthusiastically learn SWE in junior time? Well, it is everyone’s choice indeed. But for me “enjoy the process” is not just chilling and letting everything flow. For me, it is to continuously learn new things and improve my skills to be a better SWE. What do I want to achieve? It is to become a skilled SWE. So I can become a valuable SWE faster than others, maybe I only have 3 years of experience in the future but I want my skills and my bits of knowledge to be equal to 5 years of experience or more. The more impactful you are the higher your position and the higher your position means more revenue. Get paid more! Your salary grows as you level up. And last but not least is to make a bigger impact by taking a greater challenge. In the end, I really want to make my own impact by running my own start-up. Help the society to be a better place, help millions of people, and die happily after that.
That might be too far but if we don’t start right now, when? The definition of “enjoy” varies for other people. But this kind of thing really needs to be balanced by great spirituality and stress management. Sometimes we need to be realistic, resting for a while is good, but never give up.
That’s the end of this article, as I said I’m still a junior. So please correct me if I got my vision or mindset wrong, I really appreciate the positive feedback and constructive criticism.