Frustrated dev job

_goon

So i've been working away as a dev for the past few months out of college.

Was getting on fine working on a few things down my ally and doing well. Lately i've noticed the "projects todo list" is getting substantial and there are a lack of resources to satisfy. It appears that the stuff I was hired for is getting sidelined and i'm being put to task on new/existing stuff that is quite complex with little documentation (complex database/orm etc) and using tech i'm not familiar with.

While I got a 1.1 and have am getting paid at the end for a grad I feel like i'm being railroaded into stuff i'm inexperienced in and with little margin for error/learning.

I'm beginning to feel that my remit is getting too broad. I'm worried that after the next 6 months (1 year down) i'll have a bit of experience in a few different areas but no concrete skill that I could use to sell myself into another job.

It's all well and good to say you have a good degree and get well paid, now soldier up. But, call a spade a spade, i'm still a graduate and need a little extra time for tasks and guidance. Without being big headed, I consider myself a good coder and there isn't another tier of grads above me that would shame me if put in my role.

I'm really annoyed now and feel things are gearing up to be really stressful this month. My 6 month review is a few weeks away and I'm not sure how to approach. I feel like pointing out these issues.

Any opinions on this? I'm trying not rant on too much and have probably been a little vague on particulars so please ask any questions. The purpose of this post is discover if this is a regular accepted situation for a grad developer.

Thanks guys.

TouchingVirus

_goon wrote: »

Without being big headed, I consider myself a good coder and there isn't another tier of grads above me that would shame me if put in my role.

It's pretty big headed to be fair, your first class honours unless solely in programming means that you have academic skill, nothing more and nothing less. I was a first class honours student in my year but I have always recognised that there are people out there who can teach me a great many things. You're no longer a grade-driven person, in the real world it's all about results - and you'll learn in time that those less academically bright people can shame you in a results-based environment.

In my first job I found myself going from full time coder to half-coder half-sysadmin, and when I noticed it I left to refocus on programming. That was after 2 years though.

Everything else is par for the course for a grad, and development in general. Coders are thin on the ground, the to-do list is never empty, as you grow into the role it expands so you'll never fill it entirely. The most striking thing appears to be your unwillingness to grow as a coder - using unfamiliar tech; come on; where is the sense of adventure? The passion for new tech, new puzzles to solve, new wheels to not have to reinvent, it is what software engineering is about.

Take a step back and have a good think about your attitude to development - it's a career choice, be sure it's the right one for you

Mort5000

"Too much work, not enough training" is something you may experience many more times in future.
When you're given new technologies, research in your own time. If that doesn't get you some more confidence, ask for training or mentoring.
In your six month review, express concerns about being able to perform at your peak for the company.

While you may feel spread thin over many new technologies right now, stick with it and after some more time you will have more marketable experience in at least one of them.

A number of developers around me each day would be complaining that they're NOT getting exposure to any new tech, or a broad enough range of alternative projects. You may be sitting on a winner there.

If you're still unhappy in the future, look around for some other job opportunity.
However, a 6 month stint and resigning would look far worse than 2 years of lots of different things when it comes to reading a CV.

Good luck.

SalteeDog

I agree with previous poster. This is par for the course in most workplaces I have experienced. Ability to learn (mostly in your own time), willingness to tackle new challenges without being hand-held and a having a positive attitude to work in general will really stand to you. Management have a problem - there's work that needs to be done and you should be thankful they are willing to get it done with existing resources. The workplace doesn't work like college - there's no fixed syllabus, your project assignments can change on the fly and the learning never stops.

Draco

_goon wrote: »

I'm beginning to feel that my remit is getting too broad. I'm worried that after the next 6 months (1 year down) i'll have a bit of experience in a few different areas but no concrete skill that I could use to sell myself into another job.

Rather than seeing it as a negative, I'd see it as being a good thing. You'll be able to point to something that you knew nothing about and were able to pick up and run with. That's a very valuable skill to have.

It's very early in your career to get pigeonholed and having a broad experience at this stage will stand you well in the future.

_goon wrote: »

I'm really annoyed now and feel things are gearing up to be really stressful this month. My 6 month review is a few weeks away and I'm not sure how to approach. I feel like pointing out these issues.

Do bring it up. It'd be worse to leave it unsaid and end up completely overwhelmed.

Tim Robbins

_goon wrote: »

So i've been working away as a dev for the past few months out of college.

Was getting on fine working on a few things down my ally and doing well. Lately i've noticed the "projects todo list" is getting substantial and there are a lack of resources to satisfy. It appears that the stuff I was hired for is getting sidelined and i'm being put to task on new/existing stuff that is quite complex with little documentation (complex database/orm etc) and using tech i'm not familiar with.

While I got a 1.1 and have am getting paid at the end for a grad I feel like i'm being railroaded into stuff i'm inexperienced in and with little margin for error/learning.

I'm beginning to feel that my remit is getting too broad. I'm worried that after the next 6 months (1 year down) i'll have a bit of experience in a few different areas but no concrete skill that I could use to sell myself into another job.

It's all well and good to say you have a good degree and get well paid, now soldier up. But, call a spade a spade, i'm still a graduate and need a little extra time for tasks and guidance. Without being big headed, I consider myself a good coder and there isn't another tier of grads above me that would shame me if put in my role.

I'm really annoyed now and feel things are gearing up to be really stressful this month. My 6 month review is a few weeks away and I'm not sure how to approach. I feel like pointing out these issues.

Any opinions on this? I'm trying not rant on too much and have probably been a little vague on particulars so please ask any questions. The purpose of this post is discover if this is a regular accepted situation for a grad developer.

Thanks guys.

Work is work. If you are really good, get a github and work on your own stuff.

Also, college bears little resemblance to how good you are. The very best people I have worked with got 2.2's or didn't even have a computer science background. You are obviously smart but college is structured more on regurgitation than things like self learning.

Also the people teaching in colleges in Ireland are nowhere near the likes of Josh Bloch, Martin Odersky, Martin Fowler. John Resin etc

For me, how I would rate someone is how much they have contributed to the open source community, or to blogs as well as college, previous work experience and how well read they were.

Passion for software is just important if not more important than ability.

SalteeDog

Another thing. Be careful about perfectionism. You may be used to striving for 100% correctness in everything you do. This might be controversial but imho that's usually not possible and often not wise in the World of Work. You need to be diligent, you need to follow best solid practises to deliver quality code and you need to be comfortable in your estimations of effort but as someone once said 'perfect is the enemy of good'. Working code delivered on time is better than perfect code that's never delivered. In other words do not be assuming the bar you have to jump is higher than it really is.

stevenmu

_goon wrote: »

I'm beginning to feel that my remit is getting too broad. I'm worried that after the next 6 months (1 year down) i'll have a bit of experience in a few different areas but no concrete skill that I could use to sell myself into another job.

Personally I've always found that having a good breadth of knowledge is invaluable to a developer. Writing server side code will help you when writing the client side code that interacts with it, designing and building databases will help you write code that works with data well, writing good efficient and maintainable C# or Java will help you write good Javascript code, knowing about operating systems, networking and hardware will help you write better code and diagnose issues better. Every little thing you learn, not only contributes to your breadth of knowledge and overall skill set, but it feeds back into your existing skills and improves those too.

With that said, I've always felt like there are two types of developers.

There are some who want to, and excel at, diving into new things. New languages, new technologies, new methodologies. They revel in the challenge of facing something unknown, different and unexpected. They tend to get on better in smaller companies where they get stuck in with everything and anything, or doing consultancy or ISV type work where they hop between lots of projects doing different things.

Then there are some who prefer to remain more focused in the one area, working on one the same technology and platform, possibly even working on the same project, and owning a piece of that and perfecting it over time. They tend to do better in bigger companies, working on a smaller number of projects over a longer term.

To look at it another way, if you gave a bunch of sudoku puzzles to both types, the first type would figure out how to play, then solve a few, at which point to them it would just be iterating over the same problem with different parameters and they'd move on to some other puzzle. The second type would keep playing because ... well, I have to be honest here, I've no idea why, it's the same bloody thing each time just with slightly different numbers, but apparently there is something to it because people do still like it.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is there are different types of developer, and they will be better suited towards different roles. In your specific case, it may be that your current role isn't particularly suited to you, and you may be far happy in some other role. It's also very possible though that you are actually well suited to your current role, but being fresh out of college you have a lot of ideals about how development would be ideally done and are just finding the reality of it a bit grating. That's something I think all of us go through at first, and probably something most go through a good few times, some companies will be better for that than others, but no where's perfect really and tbh where you are doesn't sound bad at all.