Lessons Learnt From My First Post-Uni Developer Role
By: Natalie Mclaren
Tags: Work, Developer, Office, Graduate, Women In Tech

September marks two years since I first started my first post-grad developer role. I’ve been to conferences. I’ve completed multiple technical courses. I’ve grown my tech stack. I’ve been in a team of developers and I’ve also been on my own. But the most important takeaways revolved around soft skills and personal growth.

A few takeaways from the past two years

1. Ask, Ask and Ask again

Whether that’s wanting to attend a conference, enroll in a training course, or explore a new idea. The worst they can say is “no”. If your workplace is anything like mine, they welcome personal development and hardly said no when employees requested access to resources to grow and learn. In the past two years, I’ve attended 2 conferences, 2 career fairs, taken part in the grad assessment centre for new intakes, and volunteered weekly at a children’s programming club. So how silly would I have been by not asking?

This is also important in meetings. I was often invited to some in which I wasn’t very familiar with what was being discussed. At first, I tended to withdraw and just listen. But I realised this wasn’t speaking volumes about how interested I actually was on the topic. So don’t be afraid to ask away. You’ll find that managers really welcome this as it shows you’re engaged and interested. Plus, it’ll only lead to more conversations you can take part in.

2. Senior developers are your friends

As a junior developer, it can be scary voicing your opinion in front of multiple senior developers. I was worried when first joining a team in which I was one out of two junior developers. The others were either senior or had been programming for a very long time. I quickly realised that exchanging ideas with them was quite fun. They welcomed me suggesting alternative approaches to a solution. When it wasn’t the right road to go down, their experience meant they were quick to realise this, and they took the time to explain why. As a result, I learnt a lot of handy tricks and how-tos.

3. Take a notebook

Be prepared to write down everything. Those “quick meetings” which shouldn’t take long so “no need to bring your laptop” — take your notebook. You will have a plethora of information thrown at you in a very short space of time. Whilst you’re not expected to remember it all by any means, it’s always handy to write them down should you need them at a later date. There were multiple times where I should have written something down but hadn’t brought anything with me. It’s awkward. Especially when your colleagues are jotting away. Save yourself the awkwardness and take a notebook and a pen.

4. Play to your team’s strong suits

In every team you will have people who are good at specific things, their niche shall we say. It’s important to acknowledge your niche and offer it to the team. Likewise, it’s beneficial to know your teammates’ niches and ask for help when it’s needed. Only as a team will you glide smoothly through any project.

5. Bring in your past experiences

Don’t be afraid to guide your team down a specific approach if its proved successful in the past. Remember I spoke about strong suits and niches earlier on? This is a perfect example of when to play to them. In my first small team of three, I was the only one who had significant experience with front end component frameworks. And whilst this framework was different, the concepts applied and I was able to guide them through a huge refactor that increased our code quality. Your team will thank you for it.

6. Make connections

The connections you make at work can be extremely invaluable. And I’m not just talking about connecting with immediate team members, I mean really go out of your way to meet people and add them to your network. My workplace had over 200 developers, some of whom had been there for 15 years or more. It was very beneficial knowing some of these talented developers at a time when I was struggling with a solution.

It’s also good to mingle with employees in completely different roles and departments to yours. Through office outings and our company employee matching service, I got to meet a lot of people I may not have otherwise. Not only will you get to know your company from their roles and perspective, you never know when you’ll need a hand from these individuals in areas outside of your expertise!

7. Be honest when unsure

There’s nothing worse than being taken up on doing that thing you said you knew how to do. Because you didn’t want to say otherwise. But actually, you don’t. If you’re not sure, say so. No one is expecting you to know everything programming related fresh out of uni. This also goes for when asked about timeframes, be honest if you can’t really provide an estimate and instead offer to check in at a certain point in the day by which you may have more info on that.

8. Believe in yourself!

Yes, you’re a junior, but that doesn’t take away from the invaluable work you can produce for your team. Remember you got chosen for a reason and it’s your time to shine. Be yourself and do what you do best, in doing so you cannot go wrong!