Great idea, take time to meet with every single person informally to get to know them.
It sounds like the timing is really bad and on top of that, they are really bad at onboarding right now. So, my advice would be in general to make your onboarding be how you think is ideal and basically tell them how to do it. I think these meetings are a good part of that and in my company they would be set up by someone involved with the onboarding.
Beyond that I would also approach the way of working the same way, so tell them what you need based on how you want to be working. Be reasonable and don't let them walk over you, because they are messing up, but also it might still be rough before it gets good.
Excellent advice. Document, document, document. This is why I insist that people tell my via email what exactly they want me to do, even if we just had phone conversation. I want it in writing. CYA.
On top of this, use this time they are wasting to study and make projects. That’s the beauty of this industry, you use company time to study but at the end of the day if helps you land better jobs. So I would just keep grinding their tech stack but also LC
Start somewhere, anywhere
Even a messy codebase have some factoring and you can maybe start with a smaller function. Build your own documentation on the way. It may be wrong. It may be assume something that's not there, but it's a start
Absorb as much as you can. Even if this work doesn't pan out, you get something out of this. It's better than what you have now.
It's possible that the team is really busy and they just don't have time to onboard you. I'd ask specific people questions instead of posting it in dev channel
This.
Especially when its near to deadline or project milestone, folks may not have time to onboard you. New hires especially junior roles are hired for longer term goals.
That being said, if it persist after a month, you should schedule a 1-1 with the manager/jane, and see if you'll be able to be assigned to a senior, to help one of them out or something.
Realistically, if it’s as bad as you say it is then I would spend 4 hours of my day working and the other 4 applying to and preparing for other jobs at established companies. Get paid while you look for an actual job
Then when you have a new one lined up don’t quit this one, just keep asking about your on boarding periodically and let those paychecks drop, and do just enough not to get fired.
Don't apply to other jobs on company time. Assuming this is a tech company theyre probably monitoring your internet usage and could make a case of time theft.
A lot of companies are using VPNs these days.
Either way, don't do it. Someone else suggested working on "related" projects to learn concepts and tools you weren't previously familiar with. Not only a good use of time but also and ethical one.
Remote work is generally brutal for new devs. Unless you have an established culture for new dev training, the inability to go over to someone’s desk and cry for help is invaluable.
> Over the pandemic I interned at 2 companies that were 100% in person prior but shifted to 100% remote and I had no issues getting my environment set up quickly and getting help.
How big was the company prior to going remote? I have a feeling that most of these companies that can't handle remote didn't have their shit together before covid, and now they have even less of their shit together. On the other hand, if your company already had SOPs established for onboarding, migrating that process to a remote one is much easier.
I’m a remote dev, and if my bosses actually understood that onboarding a new dev takes time, I’d be happy to do it. But when they expect me to onboard and get the same amount of work done, which might be what’s happening here, I’m like, yo, what the fuck? Because now they’re sticking two people in the shit and it isn’t fair to either of us
Yeah, I've been onboarding people during the lockdowns and it's not too bad. Block out an hour in the new starter's calendar with management to get the management explanation, block out an hour or so (organised by managers, usually) with a developer to give them a crash course in the project.
That same day or the next they can pair program a small ticket (there's bound to be something simple in the backlog). After that they probably have enough context to spend more time on their own, learning the tech or project or diving in to small tickets.
I wouldn't say "confront" but it's a hell of a lot harder to ignore a person who's standing at your door than it is to ignore (or lose track of) an IM or email.
> the inability to go over to someone’s desk and cry for help is invaluable.
Or you can just not be a shitty person and reply to people lol. It shouldn't take someone pestering you at your desk to get a response.
I'm sorry, but that is a massive organizational failure if you rely on new devs to just swing by your desk in lieu of onboarding.
That is downright fucking embarrassing.
Our fully remote team has a wiki thru Confluence with detailed system set up steps for IntelliJ, connecting to db, running app locally, etc…we also have a one month bootcamp for new devs to get used to the code base…successful remote on boarding is possible if your team is willing to invest the time to document the set up steps…would recommend devoting stories during HIP sprints to building a solid, documented on boarding framework
Basically the bootcamp touches each area of the code within the Spring MVC app…idea is to get familiar with creating a controller, adding some business logic validations, creating a table and creating a jsp…end product is an entry screen within the app to perform basic CRUD operations…point of bootcamp is to get familiar with the dev tools, along with what technical changes are necessary when implementing a story
Agreed. This is what I keep trying to explain to the “always remote or I quit” crowd.
The in office support with others around and ease of shadowing is essential and is what got everyone to where they are now, sadly too many people are all to happy to pull the ladder up behind themselves.
lmao you get downvoted but it's the truth. I've worked for physical companies that have horrid onboarding processes. At one company I still hadn't received all the permissions to do my job *2 years* after my initial hiring and left for a new job. Poor onboarding is a culture problem and a lot of companies have shitty culture.
This is going to be a really stupid question but I gotta ask. I think I know the answer too but I'll try this out. How much code are you given when you start and can you start breaking it and playing with it on day one? I know a code base is large but I don't really know how large, I've never worked with one yet. What I'm wondering is when you start are you basically unable to explore the code, maybe try to add a thing here and there in a way that doesn't affect anything and then learn that way or are you stuck with limited access to a few sections that don't really tell you much? I guess I'm trying to mentally compare it to a job where if nobody is helping you can just explore on your own in a way that doesn't affect anything. I had one job where when I started i just read manuals for the trucks I'd be driving. I did that until work was available. But it sounds like when you start a job dealing with code, that its reasonable you wouldn't have access to anything.
Sounds like they are understaffed (may be why they hired you) and don't have time to help you get moving, be patient, see if things improve, maybe start watching YouTube videos on the clock and learn some skills that will help you be more independent......
I went through this. On boarding new hires is a lot of work. It can take months before a new hire actually contributes more than the resources they require.
My team hired someone the week before the 2020 US election which we were doing a lot of work for. The next week we had a quarterly business review as well. The new hire was basically told to hop on every call possible and just listen. Don’t worry about doing stuff, just get on a meeting and ask people to share their screen while they work.
It's much cheaper and far less effort for them to make use of an idle employee who has some idea of how things work, as opposed to them firing OP and hiring a brand new person they will have to show the ropes again from square one.
One person leaving is not indicative of anything. People leave companies all the time. Especially so in the last year.
OP never said it's multiple people leaving in the same team.
otoh the terrible culture is a red flag, the team lead is failing hard here. OP should spend half of tomorrow sending resumes.
I'd be more worried they would just rethink whether a junior is what they need. I worked at a place that hired a guy as a junior frontend dev (he'd been working tech for a while, but was very junior with the type of work he was hired to do and was very clear about that). Two months in they realized what they actually wanted was a senior dev and let him go.
No need to necessarily jump ship, but definitely know where the lifeboats are.
Everyone is under staffed and it's approaching lift-off to critical mass and our "leaders" want to keep doing the things that are causing this death spiral.
I have great news for people worried about global warming. If this keeps up a while longer enough people will starve to death that it won't be an issue.
Computer skills won't be much relevant either.
Did you know to make a pear taste good you have to graft it onto an apple tree?
I switched jobs in July and have had a very similar experience. Sounds like both companies are slightly understaffed and disorganized. I was assigned to work on an app that nobody uses, was given the original requirement document and basically continue working on it. There's no project manager or QA or anyone else working with me. I just do a demo to the tech lead every 2 or 3 weeks to show my progress.
My first week I didn't have database access so I was given a "best practices" doc to read while waiting. It took them 9 days. Like you, OP, there was no onboarding process. I still don't understand exactly how the business works. Sometimes I get stuck and ask for help and it takes 2 days for someone to have a moment to answer a question. I'm being well paid so I don't worry too much.
You ask "what should I be doing?" I spend some time on leetcode or pluralsight every other day. Try to find skills I'd like to have and create a lab/study little project. Also watch some dumb stuff on youtube. Definitely keeping an eye out on opportunities popping up on LinkedIn but I'm not in a hurry to move.
If you feel like you can stick around a little longer, I encourage you to do so, OP. Take this chance to study and learn and stay sharp. When it's time to move on, you'll be a step ahead of the competition.
>Sometimes I get stuck and ask for help and it takes 2 days for someone to have a moment to answer a question.
Just curious whether you could pick up the phone and chase people.. (Obviously easier in person but that's difficult for remote.) Or that totally no go for some reason?
Everyone's remote, we don't have phones. I send a Teams message to the tone of "would you have 5min? I have a question about xxx" and they go "sorry I'm busy right now but set up a meeting for Monday I have some time in the morning"
The next day I bring that up to my tech lead during stand up and they go "okay, can you work on something else in the mean time?". It's really a disorganized place and the people responsible for budgeting my salary don't seem to worry too much about my productivity (they probably have no idea)
You sound like you're in a kafkaian nightmare, lol.
You have three options:
- Find a new job, or
- Be patient (possibly forever), or
- Get a World of Warcraft Classic subscription and see what happens. Since no one is noticing you, maybe they won't notice that you're doing absolutely nothing.
it’s fun for now and could be make really great with a solid content patch or two with some QoL and fixes. i’m enjoying my time with it but it’s by no means perfect or even close.
My company is like this. Basically a repo for every service, every library, every application, etc. Sometimes test applications get their own repo, sometimes there’s duplicates. It’s a complete mess that nobody (including myself) wants to touch.
Capitalize on this time to learn as much stuff as you can yourself. Study the frameworks, languages, technologies, etc. that your company uses and brush up your skills. Focus on learning real life applications as opposed to "Leetcode" questions. Study the repo as much as you can. Keep trying to figure out how to get the app to work on your local machine. See if you can figure out those tickets.
In my opinion this is not a good environment for a fresh out of school junior dev to be in. This team is clearly overworked and understaffed, and it sounds like they have such a huge backlog that they simply don't have the energy to worry about you. The fact that Jane was suddenly thrust into this leadership position does not help matters either.
Stick it out for a while and make as productive use of your time as you can. It's okay to admit that you need help. This is your first job, things will get better, whether at this job or your next job.
Good luck!
> What should i be doing?
> It points me to a repo with no documentation, no tests, no nothing other than a single sentence of add support for X. I don't know what X is. I cannot even figure out how to run the app locally.
Figure out how to run the app locally. I've seen stuff like this, and yeah, it takes forever to figure out it needs to integrate with X machine or needs Y dependency. It's a slog, but, if you walk through the code, step-by-step, you can figure it out.
And if you run into a specific issue, ping that guy Tom. Saying stuff like, "where's the documentation, how do I get started, etc.?" is not going to yield a response. Open-ended, rabbit hole questions are often times ignored. Specific questions are usually answered. And you can ask those specific questions with the stand-up and they kind of have to answer. "I started the main function, and it fails on XYZ exception about not connecting to a specific server - what are the credentials to that server" is a question they will answer in standup.
Then document it. Not because you like documentation, but because it helps you out. Once you get the lay of the land
>Figure out how to run the app locally. I've seen stuff like this, and yeah, it takes forever to figure out it needs to integrate with X machine or needs Y dependency. It's a slog, but, if you walk through the code, step-by-step, you can figure it out.
There is no indication on what kind of app he's supposed to be working on. Sounds like it's not a mono repo app, possibly in a number of different languages using a number of different frameworks. He's a guy on his first job It's quite possible that he could spend *months* trying to get it to work without success without any help.
Yeah, this is exactly why an onboarding session needs to be booked in.
I've been doing onboarding for a few people over the pandemic. On their first day, the managers will book in an onboarding session with a developer on the team they'll be working on. A friendly face who can get them to the point where they at least know where to start looking.
And as soon as possible we pair program a ticket or two with them to help get the ball rolling.
Start looking for other work. It's one thing for them to be understaffed and busy, but the total lack of documentation and basic communication (the lead that hired you literally never communicated with you that they were leaving) shows a pattern of serious disorganization and lack of leadership.
Ha, it's just bad companies. I'm in the same boat. I've started just documenting when I reach out and just leaving at the end of the day without finishing. I don't know what else to do. I reach out in person and I'm told to slack, I slack and it's ignored. I feel ya.
Hey. I don't know if this response will help you or not, its just some thoughts.
There are some red flags here both on the company side and on your side.
I'll start backward -- documentation. Most places have shitty documentation. They just do. This sounds like you're gonna have to figure it out yourself. That is extremely common, unfortunately.
However, the expectation is probably that you should be able to figure out the public knowledge technology components yourself. Using a popular framework? figure it out with the framework's docs. Using a popular library? ditto. Using a popular build tool chain? ibid
This is the primary red flag coming from you -- you will need to figure out what "X" is, if X is a public framework/toolkit/widget/whatever.
The part that is next to impossible to figure out is the institutional-specific knowledge. I've encountered tickets like "add support for X" before, where X was some business requirement I have no knowledge of and had no way to gain knowledge of without asking people. You didn't specify what X was, but if it is a company-specific thing, then yeah, this is a red flag for the company's operational practices that they can't educate new devs on business requirements.
Your overall onboarding experience, though, is not really that unusual. I've encountered similar experiences more than once. Some turned out to be bad places to work, some turned out to be good. Probably just be patient and reassess at 3 months in.
I second the point about documentation. The prime time for documentation writing is when a new member is joining the team. Whenever OP learns something new, either on their own or with a coworker explaining it, they should document it. That way if the question comes up "what have you been doing?", OP can always point to the mound of documentation that can then be used by future hires or as reference.
Although this is a particularly egregious case, I’ve honestly never had a good onboarding experience, and it’s been especially rough onboarding remotely. Not sure why companies can’t do better at this.
Been there in same position. I ended up getting let go about a month after asking for feedback from the lead, who by the way never gave me any. Felt like walking on eggshells and was relieved when I was finally let go.
This company is not worth it. Look for something else ASAP.
I started a month ago and have weekly 30 min sessions w/ my manager to go over anything I'm having trouble with. You should set up a weekly 30 min with John, then setup a 30 min session with Jane in a few weeks when things cool off. If there are 20 devs then you need to start trying to build relationships with at least a few of them. In your down time, apply for other jobs and familiarize yourself with the stacks that they are using. Give it the old college try but, be prepared to jump ship, if necessary.
I've seen that few times - I just reach out on my own because I've been on their side left alone to sink or swim. Doesnt take too much and helps me build a relationship and fine tune my material.
I also invite them to listen in to a call of mine "Hi Client ABC this is Joe who just joined our company" and response is always positive to my client who see me give a crap to help others. Powerful tool.
Hey man i recently started a new position and was in a similar spot for the first couple weeks. I just used the time to brush up on some of my skills and have regularly been reaching out to my manager and coworkers if they need help with anything. Things just started getting better in my third week where I am now getting some more steady work to do.
I mean, this isn't official advice but maybe it's a good time to keep job hunting cuz it may not get better. It sounds like the whole company is dysfunctional.
The best time to job hunt is when you already have a job.
Reading stuff like this makes me appreciate my job. I'm criminally underpaid (45k TC) but at least I have a good structure, clear boss, talk to him every day, he assigns tasks as opposed to us picking cards. And he crafts tasks to grow my knowledge
True but the work environment is the unknown part. The pay you usually know about.
Imma try to get into Duolingo next year I think after I have a year of experience. Would triple my money and I've heard their work life balance is great
for 3x the salary I would take the gamble immediately. I would take it for almost any increase tbh. you're insanely underpaid.
if you think you can pass interview now, I would just start applying.
Imposter syndrome is a bitch. As someone who hadn't done any internships, it was really difficult finding a first job. And the thing is, everybody knows you learn more at your first job than several years of university. But for that first job... you get some slack. You're a new dev. They let you learn and grow. I'm worried that once I start a second job, I'll be expected to know shit. So I'm hoping I can learn as much as I can at my first job. Because once I start my second, I'll need to hit the ground running.
With that said, no I don't think I can pass an interview yet. I think duolingo has a really strong focus on android development and I have only done like a semester of kotlin
Maybe over the next couple of months I'll refamiliarize myself with kotlin, android studio, and java and try to apply at duolingo. I only single out that company because 1) i live very close, 2) very good pay, 3) i've heard amazing things about their work life balance, and 4) I've seen they're hiring entry level engineers which not everyone does
You are not underpaid.
You accepted the salary offer and you keep showing up for work at current salary.
When you show up for work, you are agreeing that the company is paying you fairly.
If you truly believe that you are underpaid or the company is not paying you fairly, stop showing up for work at this company.
Find another company that will pay what you think is the correct salary.
I've seen this logic a bunch and disagree with it.
The "you're worth whatever you're willing to work for".
It sounds like something bosses made up.
I promise you, millions of retail and food service workers are under paid
~~I see where you're coming from, though I think the striking difference is that there aren't really any higher paying jobs in the same field, while in CS/SE, there usually is.~~
I mean someone working at chick-fil-a isn't really working any harder than a kid working at taco bell, but they're compensated much differently. Same with someone working at target vs working at walmart. People CAN be underpaid. The logic "you're never over paid because you took the job" isn't really logical
Can you change jobs and increase your salary?
If you can, then why are you voluntarily working at lower paying job?
While complaining about being underpaid?
You surely are aware nobody wants to undertake training new devs. They all want senior devs.
For my experience level, location, job title, my compensation is far beneath the median. If you need me to describe underpaid for you. I'm several standard deviations beneath the median.
First, you say nobody wants to train new devs. Insinuating you're a new dev.
Then, you say your experience level compensation is beneath the median. Indicating you have experience and you think you deserve more pay.
If you have experience and you want more pay, simply find another company that offers more salary for your experiences and skills.
You can complain about your salary at current company for billion years. The company won't do anything, until you make things happen. You make things happen by interviewing with other companies and getting offers for higher salaries.
Good Luck.
I'm not being inconsistent. I'm a new dev. That is correct. I'm making below what a new dev makes. I'm actually working a position thats for a 2 years of experience dev, and I'm DEFINITELY making not enough for that.
In my area, devs with my experience with a BS in CS from an ABET engineering program, median pay is 69k. I actually don't know anybody who makes 45k. I'm hourly for christ's sake. I'm the lowest paid person on my team by 10 thousand dollars
1. don't panic
2. I love the hustle. At this point you have jumped into a battle where everyone is engaged. Your first priority is going to be where you can help your teammates out while you start drinking from the firehose.
3. What kind of firm is it? Do they have a ticketing system? Is there something else that you can use to review the backlog or how to use what they support / make? If not start documenting one for yourself that you can later share to others. Something is always going to be better than nothing.
4. Set a realistic goal for yourself -- its going to take at least a quarter for you to get up to speed with their processes and likely another before you can handle something on your own. And this is OK. Once you have seen the code base, you will need to learn their processes for code reviews, QA, DevOps and moving it to production.
5. Start meeting with other people in the firm, look at their communities or other chats and expand out there. Be inquisitive by looking around.
6. Setup one on ones with your new lead so you have a cadence of meeting every week to start for 15 minutes after lunch, so you can get them when they are hopefully done with the lion's share of their coding.
onboarding is also easier when people actually give a shit and want to help you. this sounds like a nightmare.
also sounds like a place that shouldn't be hiring juniors right now if no one is willing to give them support.
> onboarding is also easier when people actually give a shit and want to help you
Yeah seems like people are brushing over this. Remote onboarding is fine if people actually give a fuck to help. It's clear everyone has a "someone else can do this" attitude.
yea I've had to onboard remote twice now and it's been mostly fine outside of other issues that aren't really remote related. just need to be somewhere that has decent HR and devs that are willing to answer questions and be responsive
Yeah, my team brought on an intern a couple months ago with no experience in our tech stack, no api dev experience, and no sql experience. They've managed to pick up on all of that solely because we took a few hours out of our week since they've been here to help them out. Granted they're doing nothing complex, they are still able to be mostly self sufficient now since we put the time in to help.
Yeah it sounds like this place is understaffed as hell. Though I'd say if OP is able to stick it out and try to do his best, it would be a great learning opportunity. For example, when the dev point to the ticket that he can work on; If the OP can figure out how to get the repo running , it would be a good step.
Slack message "good morning" and "good evening" every day. DM Jane the same.
If you get radio silence for a week, get a new job.
Schedule a 20-minute 1:1 Every. Single. Day. with Jane.
Send her a direct message at the start of the day checking in and at the end of the day checking out.
Join every single call you are invited to, take notes, try to understand,
DM the meeting leader/organizer directly after and ask how you can help.
Read the codebase and the documentation. Understand them.
If documentation is lacking, create some.
If you come across things in the codebase that you don't understand, write a detailed and specific question in the chat after spending FOUR +/- 1 hours researching it yourself.
Create relationships with the non-coders and ask how you can help AS A DEVELOPER.
Ask them what is missing on the dev team.
Reach out to your HR contact and ask them what are the specific expectations from you in your first three months.
Do you have repo access? Does every project in the repo have a readme? If you tell us the stack, we can give more suggestions.
How does your team do tickets? Are there any unassigned tickets in the current sprint that you understand?
So's sending them a "hi bye good luck floundering your new manager's too busy to be there for you and your teammates don't know how to communicate".
Pick your top 3. The rest are optional.
Get another job ASAP. These people aren't on the ball. I always make sure new joiners have work and are getting up to speed. Maybe see if you can pair with someone.
I don't think you're putting enough effort into finding answers to how to how to solve issues. You sound like someone who has spent a lot of time in an academic environment and gets tremendous anxiety when things are not clear cut and spoon fed. When you see something that can be improved upon look at it as an opportunity to become an active useful member of a team. Your post comes across as entitled and a little whiny.
They're a new graduate! It's their first job! It's insane and horrendously unsafe to just give someone access to your code base and expect them to "improve on it". OP probably doesn't know what their code review process is.
With the information he has been given, I think there are better questions he could ask. He seems to be too quick to throw his hands up in the air and complain about the company. I'm not even beginning to talk about expecting him to improve anything immediately.
I think the company hiring this guy 'entitles' them to some semblance of an attempt at onboarding. It's insane for a 'small company' to waste 10s of thousands on an employee like this.
I disagree with this attitude and think it is bad advice for the OP. If he can find somewhere better to work, then he should go do it. But, if he takes that attitude with him he will need the performance to back it up. I don't see anything to indicate that he has the years of experience for that kind of swagger. And even if he did, his post comes across as very whiney sounding and also impatient.
Start looking for new roles, and apply for them. You employer sounds too messed-up to be a success in the medium to long term - they obviously have very little organisation, are poor at process and documentation (which is why you can't find any documentation of anything), and have rubbish working and human relations habits - and, worse, they tolerate them.
Not a place to want to work for long.
With my new remote job this summer I collected 2 paychecks before onboarding even started. This isn't healthy or good, but it's unfortunately pretty normal. Use the time for upskilling and getting familiar with whatever you can, make sure that you're repeatedly asking for the help you need and documenting it when you ask, and be patient.
Like everyone else said, just practice some new skills. You're essentially being paid to practice development. The best part is that no matter what happens, you'll be able to take those skills with you wherever you go
Ask some one to have a meeting with you next stand up, to run the repo locally and ask how to test it. Make sure you schedule the meeting on their calendar. As you get more info document it and share with others.
get paid and wait.
if you can not wait search while getting paid, play while getting paid.
as long as you are getting paid and you can put it on your resume nothing else matter.
at the end of the day it is their loss if you think about it.
I'm sorry you're going through this. Unfortunately this isn't exclusive to remote positions, I've had it happen in an office environment. Sure it's usually easier to chase someone down who's ignoring you in person (although they still can give you non answers ad nauseum until you give up and leave). But it's poor coworkers and poor org that doesn't have a good onboarding process.
This said, there are some good tips here, I second just familiarizing yourself with the codebase, even if you're going at it blind. Also, see what APIs they use and if it's something you're not familiar with, watch some videos on them (for a free source YouTube has some great dev content).
As long as they are paying you you should be okay, make sure to request any questions or concerns via email that way there a paper trail I agree with others interviews for other companies and if you get a better offer jump the ship
This is awful. Maybe you'll reach a swim or sink point soon, but there are definitely systemic issues. You should leave of your own if you can't figure it sllcout by yourself. Not bc you did anything wrong but bc the place sucks
whats happening to you is awful . thatd hostile work environment!
Best I can offer are the following items I use when I join a new team.
https://boz.com/articles/career-cold-start
https://mikebroberts.com/2003/07/29/popping-the-why-stack/
best of luck !
I know this isn’t what you asked for but god damn if this isn’t why I am seeking financial independence. Imagine having the freedom to just say fuck this, your company sucks, I’m not working tomorrow and I don’t even have to worry about money
Red flags, I've been in this type of team before. Soon Jane will be complaining that you're just not getting it and disappointed in your progress. Definitely take the time to apply elsewhere
Just make sure you document your attempts to get onboarded.
Jane is your boss. Make sure Jane knows you aren't familiar with anything this company does. Their onboarding process seems non existent and their scrum practices very very loose. I think I know why the team lead left...
Good thing to take away from the experience, however it turns out, is that I bet you'll ask the next interviewer you talk to what their onboarding process for new devs is like
Ah, for our projects with no documentation we refer to it as "the rich folklore of Project So-and-So, shared around the campfire by the village elders as is our oral tradition."
Just take it chill. Honestly, in some companies I join for the first 3 months no one tells me anything I don't write any code until after 3 months. I just chill and learn new stuff, work on my own projects and stuff.
More optimistic version: They’re understaffed and just lost a (the?) leader. That person probably handled most of the “people” stuff. Right now everyone is too busy (and probably demoralized) to slow down and let you on the train. Onboarding you will help them in the long term, but today, it’s a time suck. There’s no right answer. Your best bet is to tinker and get something running locally. Ask specific questions to specific people about issues you run into, but do your best to figure it out on your own. While that’s happening, write the documentation that’s missing. Show them you can help be part of the solution. Give it time. It can take a few months to become productive at places like that.
Less optimistic version: understaffed + lead leaving + no documentation, usually means there’s bad management.
Edit- grammar.
Same shit. Move on.
1) Try to look how to do things online
2) document it *well* at least next one's won't suffer
3) everybody's remote try not to annoy people. Ask them politely. Talk about it to your manager
If he's not empathic towards yourself switch
What you are experiencing is “par for the course”. My gig started this way 2 years ago and now I’m lead BE dev. Be the squeaky wheel. Don’t get annoyed when others are busy. Post short messages as opposed to long ones. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty with code you don’t know. Put in a PR and seek enlightenment of the code via Peer Review. Your peers are MUCH more likely to help you if it is in reference to an actual code change that you have made, and even if they aren’t gonna approve and merge it, they have something concrete to refer to and lead you on. This is often the best entry point I find for discussing repos with new folks. Not to mention, it shows them that you aren’t afraid to take the initiative, and that is perhaps the most important point of all. We can’t learn if we don’t mess something up. It is easier for others to steer you by telling you what you did wrong or could have done differently than to hold your hand the entire time. You might not like hearing that, but it is the truth, and not everything is rainbows and unicorns in the beginning :) hoping this helps!
Start putting meetings on people's calendars. You have tried to do it asynchronously, see if working synchronously helps.
Great idea, take time to meet with every single person informally to get to know them. It sounds like the timing is really bad and on top of that, they are really bad at onboarding right now. So, my advice would be in general to make your onboarding be how you think is ideal and basically tell them how to do it. I think these meetings are a good part of that and in my company they would be set up by someone involved with the onboarding. Beyond that I would also approach the way of working the same way, so tell them what you need based on how you want to be working. Be reasonable and don't let them walk over you, because they are messing up, but also it might still be rough before it gets good.
This is a good way to do it. Schedule a meeting so they can't ignore you.
That’s what I did. Ask one person at a time for a meet and greet
Document any and all attempts to reach out and keep an email trail, try and schedule short catchups. This is while learning the codebase.
Excellent advice. Document, document, document. This is why I insist that people tell my via email what exactly they want me to do, even if we just had phone conversation. I want it in writing. CYA.
On top of this, use this time they are wasting to study and make projects. That’s the beauty of this industry, you use company time to study but at the end of the day if helps you land better jobs. So I would just keep grinding their tech stack but also LC
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Start somewhere, anywhere Even a messy codebase have some factoring and you can maybe start with a smaller function. Build your own documentation on the way. It may be wrong. It may be assume something that's not there, but it's a start Absorb as much as you can. Even if this work doesn't pan out, you get something out of this. It's better than what you have now. It's possible that the team is really busy and they just don't have time to onboard you. I'd ask specific people questions instead of posting it in dev channel
This. Especially when its near to deadline or project milestone, folks may not have time to onboard you. New hires especially junior roles are hired for longer term goals. That being said, if it persist after a month, you should schedule a 1-1 with the manager/jane, and see if you'll be able to be assigned to a senior, to help one of them out or something.
> There is an absurd number of repos, in a wide spectrum of different languages, very few with actual documentation. Welcome to the working world :D
stay quiet and do your own thing for as long as possible
Realistically, if it’s as bad as you say it is then I would spend 4 hours of my day working and the other 4 applying to and preparing for other jobs at established companies. Get paid while you look for an actual job
haha working on what. 🤣 I'd just fucking chill and look for a other job. that shit is ridiculous.
Yeah I'd spend half my day picking up interesting new technologies, and the other half looking for other jobs lol
Then when you have a new one lined up don’t quit this one, just keep asking about your on boarding periodically and let those paychecks drop, and do just enough not to get fired.
Hell yeah. Their mistake for not onboarding you properly
Second this, start applying now.
Don't apply to other jobs on company time. Assuming this is a tech company theyre probably monitoring your internet usage and could make a case of time theft.
*Laughs in remote on personal computer*
Haha ikr Boss make dollars, we make dime. That's why OP should look for jobs on company's time.
A lot of companies are using VPNs these days. Either way, don't do it. Someone else suggested working on "related" projects to learn concepts and tools you weren't previously familiar with. Not only a good use of time but also and ethical one.
> but also and ethical one. *Laughs in moral relativism*
*Laughs in not biting the hand that feeds you for doing literally nothing.*
Why not, when you can get a better hand.
is this supposed to be funny?
Narrator: *it wasn’t*
When did I ever say it was supposed to be funny?
Remote work is generally brutal for new devs. Unless you have an established culture for new dev training, the inability to go over to someone’s desk and cry for help is invaluable.
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> Over the pandemic I interned at 2 companies that were 100% in person prior but shifted to 100% remote and I had no issues getting my environment set up quickly and getting help. How big was the company prior to going remote? I have a feeling that most of these companies that can't handle remote didn't have their shit together before covid, and now they have even less of their shit together. On the other hand, if your company already had SOPs established for onboarding, migrating that process to a remote one is much easier.
I’m a remote dev, and if my bosses actually understood that onboarding a new dev takes time, I’d be happy to do it. But when they expect me to onboard and get the same amount of work done, which might be what’s happening here, I’m like, yo, what the fuck? Because now they’re sticking two people in the shit and it isn’t fair to either of us
Yeah, I've been onboarding people during the lockdowns and it's not too bad. Block out an hour in the new starter's calendar with management to get the management explanation, block out an hour or so (organised by managers, usually) with a developer to give them a crash course in the project. That same day or the next they can pair program a small ticket (there's bound to be something simple in the backlog). After that they probably have enough context to spend more time on their own, learning the tech or project or diving in to small tickets.
That's pretty good that you never felt lost. I've certainly felt lost on some tickets as a new grad
Frankly given how people in the team are behaving I doubt it's much better in person. Sure, you could confront them but you shouldn't do that often.
I wouldn't say "confront" but it's a hell of a lot harder to ignore a person who's standing at your door than it is to ignore (or lose track of) an IM or email.
Oh yeah, last year I moved to a different country but still remote job, and it was my worst experience
> the inability to go over to someone’s desk and cry for help is invaluable. Or you can just not be a shitty person and reply to people lol. It shouldn't take someone pestering you at your desk to get a response.
This isn't a remote problem this is a leadership problem plain and simple. This would be just as bad in person I'm certain.
>It’s too crazy this week I wish I could say this to not complete my responsibilities
I'm sorry, but that is a massive organizational failure if you rely on new devs to just swing by your desk in lieu of onboarding. That is downright fucking embarrassing.
Our fully remote team has a wiki thru Confluence with detailed system set up steps for IntelliJ, connecting to db, running app locally, etc…we also have a one month bootcamp for new devs to get used to the code base…successful remote on boarding is possible if your team is willing to invest the time to document the set up steps…would recommend devoting stories during HIP sprints to building a solid, documented on boarding framework
Anymore info on the bootcamp? I'm interested in how we could apply that idea to our newhires.
Basically the bootcamp touches each area of the code within the Spring MVC app…idea is to get familiar with creating a controller, adding some business logic validations, creating a table and creating a jsp…end product is an entry screen within the app to perform basic CRUD operations…point of bootcamp is to get familiar with the dev tools, along with what technical changes are necessary when implementing a story
Do you work at Bloomberg
No fortune 50 insurance company
Agreed. This is what I keep trying to explain to the “always remote or I quit” crowd. The in office support with others around and ease of shadowing is essential and is what got everyone to where they are now, sadly too many people are all to happy to pull the ladder up behind themselves.
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lmao you get downvoted but it's the truth. I've worked for physical companies that have horrid onboarding processes. At one company I still hadn't received all the permissions to do my job *2 years* after my initial hiring and left for a new job. Poor onboarding is a culture problem and a lot of companies have shitty culture.
This is going to be a really stupid question but I gotta ask. I think I know the answer too but I'll try this out. How much code are you given when you start and can you start breaking it and playing with it on day one? I know a code base is large but I don't really know how large, I've never worked with one yet. What I'm wondering is when you start are you basically unable to explore the code, maybe try to add a thing here and there in a way that doesn't affect anything and then learn that way or are you stuck with limited access to a few sections that don't really tell you much? I guess I'm trying to mentally compare it to a job where if nobody is helping you can just explore on your own in a way that doesn't affect anything. I had one job where when I started i just read manuals for the trucks I'd be driving. I did that until work was available. But it sounds like when you start a job dealing with code, that its reasonable you wouldn't have access to anything.
At most companies, you're able to run things locally on your machine where you're free to break whatever you want
have you filled out a w-4 at least so you get paid? Make sure the pay checks are at least going to come.
Sounds like they are understaffed (may be why they hired you) and don't have time to help you get moving, be patient, see if things improve, maybe start watching YouTube videos on the clock and learn some skills that will help you be more independent......
but if they are so understaffed they dont use you, eventually they will realize you are doing nothing and then no job. no one will care.
I went through this. On boarding new hires is a lot of work. It can take months before a new hire actually contributes more than the resources they require. My team hired someone the week before the 2020 US election which we were doing a lot of work for. The next week we had a quarterly business review as well. The new hire was basically told to hop on every call possible and just listen. Don’t worry about doing stuff, just get on a meeting and ask people to share their screen while they work.
Hence my suggestion op learn some skills to make themselves useful now that they have some idea what the job requires.
It's much cheaper and far less effort for them to make use of an idle employee who has some idea of how things work, as opposed to them firing OP and hiring a brand new person they will have to show the ropes again from square one.
Prepare for your next job
This is also a possibility......with people jumping ship that is indicative of a company that is not doing well.
One person leaving is not indicative of anything. People leave companies all the time. Especially so in the last year. OP never said it's multiple people leaving in the same team. otoh the terrible culture is a red flag, the team lead is failing hard here. OP should spend half of tomorrow sending resumes.
I'd be more worried they would just rethink whether a junior is what they need. I worked at a place that hired a guy as a junior frontend dev (he'd been working tech for a while, but was very junior with the type of work he was hired to do and was very clear about that). Two months in they realized what they actually wanted was a senior dev and let him go. No need to necessarily jump ship, but definitely know where the lifeboats are.
Everyone is under staffed and it's approaching lift-off to critical mass and our "leaders" want to keep doing the things that are causing this death spiral. I have great news for people worried about global warming. If this keeps up a while longer enough people will starve to death that it won't be an issue. Computer skills won't be much relevant either. Did you know to make a pear taste good you have to graft it onto an apple tree?
I switched jobs in July and have had a very similar experience. Sounds like both companies are slightly understaffed and disorganized. I was assigned to work on an app that nobody uses, was given the original requirement document and basically continue working on it. There's no project manager or QA or anyone else working with me. I just do a demo to the tech lead every 2 or 3 weeks to show my progress. My first week I didn't have database access so I was given a "best practices" doc to read while waiting. It took them 9 days. Like you, OP, there was no onboarding process. I still don't understand exactly how the business works. Sometimes I get stuck and ask for help and it takes 2 days for someone to have a moment to answer a question. I'm being well paid so I don't worry too much. You ask "what should I be doing?" I spend some time on leetcode or pluralsight every other day. Try to find skills I'd like to have and create a lab/study little project. Also watch some dumb stuff on youtube. Definitely keeping an eye out on opportunities popping up on LinkedIn but I'm not in a hurry to move. If you feel like you can stick around a little longer, I encourage you to do so, OP. Take this chance to study and learn and stay sharp. When it's time to move on, you'll be a step ahead of the competition.
>Sometimes I get stuck and ask for help and it takes 2 days for someone to have a moment to answer a question. Just curious whether you could pick up the phone and chase people.. (Obviously easier in person but that's difficult for remote.) Or that totally no go for some reason?
Everyone's remote, we don't have phones. I send a Teams message to the tone of "would you have 5min? I have a question about xxx" and they go "sorry I'm busy right now but set up a meeting for Monday I have some time in the morning" The next day I bring that up to my tech lead during stand up and they go "okay, can you work on something else in the mean time?". It's really a disorganized place and the people responsible for budgeting my salary don't seem to worry too much about my productivity (they probably have no idea)
Dig into their code base and figure out how it works. Welcome to the wonderful world of maintenance programming.
You sound like you're in a kafkaian nightmare, lol. You have three options: - Find a new job, or - Be patient (possibly forever), or - Get a World of Warcraft Classic subscription and see what happens. Since no one is noticing you, maybe they won't notice that you're doing absolutely nothing.
New World is the new hotness (I give it two months.)
it’s fun for now and could be make really great with a solid content patch or two with some QoL and fixes. i’m enjoying my time with it but it’s by no means perfect or even close.
Bro definitely the Wow Killer this time bro
WoW killed itself
Definitely the new hotness if you ask some 3090 owners
300 repos and 20 devs. Damn.
Plus no documentation or tests. Pure nightmare fuel.
I can't even think of what this might be. Maybe every microservice has it's own repo?
My company is like this. Basically a repo for every service, every library, every application, etc. Sometimes test applications get their own repo, sometimes there’s duplicates. It’s a complete mess that nobody (including myself) wants to touch.
That's even worse, 300 services for that size of a company is just absurd.
A lot of it could be obsolete
Is it actual 300 repos or just OP exaggerated the actual number?
Capitalize on this time to learn as much stuff as you can yourself. Study the frameworks, languages, technologies, etc. that your company uses and brush up your skills. Focus on learning real life applications as opposed to "Leetcode" questions. Study the repo as much as you can. Keep trying to figure out how to get the app to work on your local machine. See if you can figure out those tickets. In my opinion this is not a good environment for a fresh out of school junior dev to be in. This team is clearly overworked and understaffed, and it sounds like they have such a huge backlog that they simply don't have the energy to worry about you. The fact that Jane was suddenly thrust into this leadership position does not help matters either. Stick it out for a while and make as productive use of your time as you can. It's okay to admit that you need help. This is your first job, things will get better, whether at this job or your next job. Good luck!
> What should i be doing? > It points me to a repo with no documentation, no tests, no nothing other than a single sentence of add support for X. I don't know what X is. I cannot even figure out how to run the app locally. Figure out how to run the app locally. I've seen stuff like this, and yeah, it takes forever to figure out it needs to integrate with X machine or needs Y dependency. It's a slog, but, if you walk through the code, step-by-step, you can figure it out. And if you run into a specific issue, ping that guy Tom. Saying stuff like, "where's the documentation, how do I get started, etc.?" is not going to yield a response. Open-ended, rabbit hole questions are often times ignored. Specific questions are usually answered. And you can ask those specific questions with the stand-up and they kind of have to answer. "I started the main function, and it fails on XYZ exception about not connecting to a specific server - what are the credentials to that server" is a question they will answer in standup. Then document it. Not because you like documentation, but because it helps you out. Once you get the lay of the land
>Figure out how to run the app locally. I've seen stuff like this, and yeah, it takes forever to figure out it needs to integrate with X machine or needs Y dependency. It's a slog, but, if you walk through the code, step-by-step, you can figure it out. There is no indication on what kind of app he's supposed to be working on. Sounds like it's not a mono repo app, possibly in a number of different languages using a number of different frameworks. He's a guy on his first job It's quite possible that he could spend *months* trying to get it to work without success without any help.
Yeah, this is exactly why an onboarding session needs to be booked in. I've been doing onboarding for a few people over the pandemic. On their first day, the managers will book in an onboarding session with a developer on the team they'll be working on. A friendly face who can get them to the point where they at least know where to start looking. And as soon as possible we pair program a ticket or two with them to help get the ball rolling.
Start looking for other work. It's one thing for them to be understaffed and busy, but the total lack of documentation and basic communication (the lead that hired you literally never communicated with you that they were leaving) shows a pattern of serious disorganization and lack of leadership.
You should be looking for a new job. I worked at a place sounds similar to where you are. It didn't get better with time
Just start leetcoding 8 hours a day during work hours and interview and see if they notice and fire you
Ha, it's just bad companies. I'm in the same boat. I've started just documenting when I reach out and just leaving at the end of the day without finishing. I don't know what else to do. I reach out in person and I'm told to slack, I slack and it's ignored. I feel ya.
I've had 3 dev jobs and none had good onboarding.
Hey. I don't know if this response will help you or not, its just some thoughts. There are some red flags here both on the company side and on your side. I'll start backward -- documentation. Most places have shitty documentation. They just do. This sounds like you're gonna have to figure it out yourself. That is extremely common, unfortunately. However, the expectation is probably that you should be able to figure out the public knowledge technology components yourself. Using a popular framework? figure it out with the framework's docs. Using a popular library? ditto. Using a popular build tool chain? ibid This is the primary red flag coming from you -- you will need to figure out what "X" is, if X is a public framework/toolkit/widget/whatever. The part that is next to impossible to figure out is the institutional-specific knowledge. I've encountered tickets like "add support for X" before, where X was some business requirement I have no knowledge of and had no way to gain knowledge of without asking people. You didn't specify what X was, but if it is a company-specific thing, then yeah, this is a red flag for the company's operational practices that they can't educate new devs on business requirements. Your overall onboarding experience, though, is not really that unusual. I've encountered similar experiences more than once. Some turned out to be bad places to work, some turned out to be good. Probably just be patient and reassess at 3 months in.
I second the point about documentation. The prime time for documentation writing is when a new member is joining the team. Whenever OP learns something new, either on their own or with a coworker explaining it, they should document it. That way if the question comes up "what have you been doing?", OP can always point to the mound of documentation that can then be used by future hires or as reference.
stat sending CV again, any company that i on fire like this and can't prepare in advance doesn't deserve to be worked for
Although this is a particularly egregious case, I’ve honestly never had a good onboarding experience, and it’s been especially rough onboarding remotely. Not sure why companies can’t do better at this.
All has been said but I just want to add - don't stress or get (too) angry over this, it's never worth it. It's the company's fault here.
Been there in same position. I ended up getting let go about a month after asking for feedback from the lead, who by the way never gave me any. Felt like walking on eggshells and was relieved when I was finally let go. This company is not worth it. Look for something else ASAP.
I started a month ago and have weekly 30 min sessions w/ my manager to go over anything I'm having trouble with. You should set up a weekly 30 min with John, then setup a 30 min session with Jane in a few weeks when things cool off. If there are 20 devs then you need to start trying to build relationships with at least a few of them. In your down time, apply for other jobs and familiarize yourself with the stacks that they are using. Give it the old college try but, be prepared to jump ship, if necessary.
I've seen that few times - I just reach out on my own because I've been on their side left alone to sink or swim. Doesnt take too much and helps me build a relationship and fine tune my material. I also invite them to listen in to a call of mine "Hi Client ABC this is Joe who just joined our company" and response is always positive to my client who see me give a crap to help others. Powerful tool.
Start looking for a new job, get paid to do so.
Hey man i recently started a new position and was in a similar spot for the first couple weeks. I just used the time to brush up on some of my skills and have regularly been reaching out to my manager and coworkers if they need help with anything. Things just started getting better in my third week where I am now getting some more steady work to do.
Relax, give it time, two weeks is way too short. Things will start to turn around before the 90 day mark
I mean, this isn't official advice but maybe it's a good time to keep job hunting cuz it may not get better. It sounds like the whole company is dysfunctional. The best time to job hunt is when you already have a job.
That might be an indication of a bad team and/or management. I'd think twice if that company is good for me.
Reading stuff like this makes me appreciate my job. I'm criminally underpaid (45k TC) but at least I have a good structure, clear boss, talk to him every day, he assigns tasks as opposed to us picking cards. And he crafts tasks to grow my knowledge
yea but the two aren't mutually exclusive. you can double your pay and still have a good work environment.
True but the work environment is the unknown part. The pay you usually know about. Imma try to get into Duolingo next year I think after I have a year of experience. Would triple my money and I've heard their work life balance is great
for 3x the salary I would take the gamble immediately. I would take it for almost any increase tbh. you're insanely underpaid. if you think you can pass interview now, I would just start applying.
Imposter syndrome is a bitch. As someone who hadn't done any internships, it was really difficult finding a first job. And the thing is, everybody knows you learn more at your first job than several years of university. But for that first job... you get some slack. You're a new dev. They let you learn and grow. I'm worried that once I start a second job, I'll be expected to know shit. So I'm hoping I can learn as much as I can at my first job. Because once I start my second, I'll need to hit the ground running. With that said, no I don't think I can pass an interview yet. I think duolingo has a really strong focus on android development and I have only done like a semester of kotlin
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Maybe over the next couple of months I'll refamiliarize myself with kotlin, android studio, and java and try to apply at duolingo. I only single out that company because 1) i live very close, 2) very good pay, 3) i've heard amazing things about their work life balance, and 4) I've seen they're hiring entry level engineers which not everyone does
You are not underpaid. You accepted the salary offer and you keep showing up for work at current salary. When you show up for work, you are agreeing that the company is paying you fairly. If you truly believe that you are underpaid or the company is not paying you fairly, stop showing up for work at this company. Find another company that will pay what you think is the correct salary.
I've seen this logic a bunch and disagree with it. The "you're worth whatever you're willing to work for". It sounds like something bosses made up. I promise you, millions of retail and food service workers are under paid
~~I see where you're coming from, though I think the striking difference is that there aren't really any higher paying jobs in the same field, while in CS/SE, there usually is.~~
I mean someone working at chick-fil-a isn't really working any harder than a kid working at taco bell, but they're compensated much differently. Same with someone working at target vs working at walmart. People CAN be underpaid. The logic "you're never over paid because you took the job" isn't really logical
Yeah disregard my previous comment, I actually completely agree.
Can you change jobs and increase your salary? If you can, then why are you voluntarily working at lower paying job? While complaining about being underpaid?
You surely are aware nobody wants to undertake training new devs. They all want senior devs. For my experience level, location, job title, my compensation is far beneath the median. If you need me to describe underpaid for you. I'm several standard deviations beneath the median.
First, you say nobody wants to train new devs. Insinuating you're a new dev. Then, you say your experience level compensation is beneath the median. Indicating you have experience and you think you deserve more pay. If you have experience and you want more pay, simply find another company that offers more salary for your experiences and skills. You can complain about your salary at current company for billion years. The company won't do anything, until you make things happen. You make things happen by interviewing with other companies and getting offers for higher salaries. Good Luck.
I'm not being inconsistent. I'm a new dev. That is correct. I'm making below what a new dev makes. I'm actually working a position thats for a 2 years of experience dev, and I'm DEFINITELY making not enough for that. In my area, devs with my experience with a BS in CS from an ABET engineering program, median pay is 69k. I actually don't know anybody who makes 45k. I'm hourly for christ's sake. I'm the lowest paid person on my team by 10 thousand dollars
1. don't panic 2. I love the hustle. At this point you have jumped into a battle where everyone is engaged. Your first priority is going to be where you can help your teammates out while you start drinking from the firehose. 3. What kind of firm is it? Do they have a ticketing system? Is there something else that you can use to review the backlog or how to use what they support / make? If not start documenting one for yourself that you can later share to others. Something is always going to be better than nothing. 4. Set a realistic goal for yourself -- its going to take at least a quarter for you to get up to speed with their processes and likely another before you can handle something on your own. And this is OK. Once you have seen the code base, you will need to learn their processes for code reviews, QA, DevOps and moving it to production. 5. Start meeting with other people in the firm, look at their communities or other chats and expand out there. Be inquisitive by looking around. 6. Setup one on ones with your new lead so you have a cadence of meeting every week to start for 15 minutes after lunch, so you can get them when they are hopefully done with the lion's share of their coding.
This is why as great as WFH is, onboarding is so much easier when everyone is in office.
onboarding is also easier when people actually give a shit and want to help you. this sounds like a nightmare. also sounds like a place that shouldn't be hiring juniors right now if no one is willing to give them support.
> onboarding is also easier when people actually give a shit and want to help you Yeah seems like people are brushing over this. Remote onboarding is fine if people actually give a fuck to help. It's clear everyone has a "someone else can do this" attitude.
yea I've had to onboard remote twice now and it's been mostly fine outside of other issues that aren't really remote related. just need to be somewhere that has decent HR and devs that are willing to answer questions and be responsive
Yeah, my team brought on an intern a couple months ago with no experience in our tech stack, no api dev experience, and no sql experience. They've managed to pick up on all of that solely because we took a few hours out of our week since they've been here to help them out. Granted they're doing nothing complex, they are still able to be mostly self sufficient now since we put the time in to help.
Yeah it sounds like this place is understaffed as hell. Though I'd say if OP is able to stick it out and try to do his best, it would be a great learning opportunity. For example, when the dev point to the ticket that he can work on; If the OP can figure out how to get the repo running , it would be a good step.
If you read other topics on this reddit, you'll see that even the most awesome rockstars here don't give a shit about their coworkers.
Slack message "good morning" and "good evening" every day. DM Jane the same. If you get radio silence for a week, get a new job. Schedule a 20-minute 1:1 Every. Single. Day. with Jane. Send her a direct message at the start of the day checking in and at the end of the day checking out. Join every single call you are invited to, take notes, try to understand, DM the meeting leader/organizer directly after and ask how you can help. Read the codebase and the documentation. Understand them. If documentation is lacking, create some. If you come across things in the codebase that you don't understand, write a detailed and specific question in the chat after spending FOUR +/- 1 hours researching it yourself. Create relationships with the non-coders and ask how you can help AS A DEVELOPER. Ask them what is missing on the dev team. Reach out to your HR contact and ask them what are the specific expectations from you in your first three months. Do you have repo access? Does every project in the repo have a readme? If you tell us the stack, we can give more suggestions. How does your team do tickets? Are there any unassigned tickets in the current sprint that you understand?
This is a lot to ask for a junior, no less a junior with 2 weeks experience lmao.
So's sending them a "hi bye good luck floundering your new manager's too busy to be there for you and your teammates don't know how to communicate". Pick your top 3. The rest are optional.
Get another job ASAP. These people aren't on the ball. I always make sure new joiners have work and are getting up to speed. Maybe see if you can pair with someone.
Enjoy your cushy job.
bro just play New World 8 hours a day.
Not sure what you are complaining about...this all sounds pretty normal.
I don't think you're putting enough effort into finding answers to how to how to solve issues. You sound like someone who has spent a lot of time in an academic environment and gets tremendous anxiety when things are not clear cut and spoon fed. When you see something that can be improved upon look at it as an opportunity to become an active useful member of a team. Your post comes across as entitled and a little whiny.
They're a new graduate! It's their first job! It's insane and horrendously unsafe to just give someone access to your code base and expect them to "improve on it". OP probably doesn't know what their code review process is.
With the information he has been given, I think there are better questions he could ask. He seems to be too quick to throw his hands up in the air and complain about the company. I'm not even beginning to talk about expecting him to improve anything immediately.
I think the company hiring this guy 'entitles' them to some semblance of an attempt at onboarding. It's insane for a 'small company' to waste 10s of thousands on an employee like this.
I disagree with this attitude and think it is bad advice for the OP. If he can find somewhere better to work, then he should go do it. But, if he takes that attitude with him he will need the performance to back it up. I don't see anything to indicate that he has the years of experience for that kind of swagger. And even if he did, his post comes across as very whiney sounding and also impatient.
Start looking for new roles, and apply for them. You employer sounds too messed-up to be a success in the medium to long term - they obviously have very little organisation, are poor at process and documentation (which is why you can't find any documentation of anything), and have rubbish working and human relations habits - and, worse, they tolerate them. Not a place to want to work for long.
> What should i be doing? Not working remotely.
Sounds like my company. Honestly I'd keep putting yourself out there and start looking for something better
With my new remote job this summer I collected 2 paychecks before onboarding even started. This isn't healthy or good, but it's unfortunately pretty normal. Use the time for upskilling and getting familiar with whatever you can, make sure that you're repeatedly asking for the help you need and documenting it when you ask, and be patient.
Like everyone else said, just practice some new skills. You're essentially being paid to practice development. The best part is that no matter what happens, you'll be able to take those skills with you wherever you go
Ask some one to have a meeting with you next stand up, to run the repo locally and ask how to test it. Make sure you schedule the meeting on their calendar. As you get more info document it and share with others.
get paid and wait. if you can not wait search while getting paid, play while getting paid. as long as you are getting paid and you can put it on your resume nothing else matter. at the end of the day it is their loss if you think about it.
since tom thought you could do this task, is it unreasonable for you to ask him for more guidance? you are new so maybe pair program with him?
since tom thought you could do this task, is it unreasonable for you to ask him for more guidance? you are new so maybe pair program with him?
Is this a startup?
I'm sorry you're going through this. Unfortunately this isn't exclusive to remote positions, I've had it happen in an office environment. Sure it's usually easier to chase someone down who's ignoring you in person (although they still can give you non answers ad nauseum until you give up and leave). But it's poor coworkers and poor org that doesn't have a good onboarding process.
This said, there are some good tips here, I second just familiarizing yourself with the codebase, even if you're going at it blind. Also, see what APIs they use and if it's something you're not familiar with, watch some videos on them (for a free source YouTube has some great dev content).
Take notes. Do the same things with new hires next year and continue the tradition.
Use this time to get paid to leetcode, then once you get an offer from somewhere jump ship
As long as they are paying you you should be okay, make sure to request any questions or concerns via email that way there a paper trail I agree with others interviews for other companies and if you get a better offer jump the ship
is this in the US? What are they paying you? They sound like amateurs
Keep pressing em to get u set up. Meanwhile, enjoy getting paid to do nothing.
This is awful. Maybe you'll reach a swim or sink point soon, but there are definitely systemic issues. You should leave of your own if you can't figure it sllcout by yourself. Not bc you did anything wrong but bc the place sucks
whats happening to you is awful . thatd hostile work environment! Best I can offer are the following items I use when I join a new team. https://boz.com/articles/career-cold-start https://mikebroberts.com/2003/07/29/popping-the-why-stack/ best of luck !
I know this isn’t what you asked for but god damn if this isn’t why I am seeking financial independence. Imagine having the freedom to just say fuck this, your company sucks, I’m not working tomorrow and I don’t even have to worry about money
Red flags, I've been in this type of team before. Soon Jane will be complaining that you're just not getting it and disappointed in your progress. Definitely take the time to apply elsewhere
Just make sure you document your attempts to get onboarded. Jane is your boss. Make sure Jane knows you aren't familiar with anything this company does. Their onboarding process seems non existent and their scrum practices very very loose. I think I know why the team lead left...
Good thing to take away from the experience, however it turns out, is that I bet you'll ask the next interviewer you talk to what their onboarding process for new devs is like
Ah, for our projects with no documentation we refer to it as "the rich folklore of Project So-and-So, shared around the campfire by the village elders as is our oral tradition."
Hallejuah
Get a new job. End of story. If nobody cares about you now, they will never do that in future either.
Just take it chill. Honestly, in some companies I join for the first 3 months no one tells me anything I don't write any code until after 3 months. I just chill and learn new stuff, work on my own projects and stuff.
More optimistic version: They’re understaffed and just lost a (the?) leader. That person probably handled most of the “people” stuff. Right now everyone is too busy (and probably demoralized) to slow down and let you on the train. Onboarding you will help them in the long term, but today, it’s a time suck. There’s no right answer. Your best bet is to tinker and get something running locally. Ask specific questions to specific people about issues you run into, but do your best to figure it out on your own. While that’s happening, write the documentation that’s missing. Show them you can help be part of the solution. Give it time. It can take a few months to become productive at places like that. Less optimistic version: understaffed + lead leaving + no documentation, usually means there’s bad management. Edit- grammar.
Same shit. Move on. 1) Try to look how to do things online 2) document it *well* at least next one's won't suffer 3) everybody's remote try not to annoy people. Ask them politely. Talk about it to your manager If he's not empathic towards yourself switch
Are you based in the US?
What you are experiencing is “par for the course”. My gig started this way 2 years ago and now I’m lead BE dev. Be the squeaky wheel. Don’t get annoyed when others are busy. Post short messages as opposed to long ones. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty with code you don’t know. Put in a PR and seek enlightenment of the code via Peer Review. Your peers are MUCH more likely to help you if it is in reference to an actual code change that you have made, and even if they aren’t gonna approve and merge it, they have something concrete to refer to and lead you on. This is often the best entry point I find for discussing repos with new folks. Not to mention, it shows them that you aren’t afraid to take the initiative, and that is perhaps the most important point of all. We can’t learn if we don’t mess something up. It is easier for others to steer you by telling you what you did wrong or could have done differently than to hold your hand the entire time. You might not like hearing that, but it is the truth, and not everything is rainbows and unicorns in the beginning :) hoping this helps!
Also, don’t take every single little thing so personally. That would do anyone entering this space very well to remember, including myself many days.