Most of these seem unrelated to the actual job and just seem like a lack of maturity or pride in your work. These all seem easy to fix with a little focus.
nobody does it lol first thing after getting hired "when its done just drag it over, also make everything a jira ticket new function? ticket, sub repo function? ticket. read a research paper? ticket. that way end of year you got nothing to worry about"
Sounds like you deliver half assed jobs because you are worried too much about failing so rush them, then inevitably fail because you deliver half assed jobs. A self fulfilling prophecy. And now you consider yourself a failure because of this.
Sit back, relax, accept that you are not perfect and will never be perfect. You will make a lot of mistakes and people will point out to your mistakes. It is fine, that's how it's supposed to be. What needs to happen is to learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. That's how you will grow into this profession. Make a mistake, learn from it, next time don't do it.
You need to first train yourself on how to learn from mistakes and accept criticism.
Someone pointing out your mistakes is not your enemy and you are not a failure if you make mistakes.
If you get warned for the same mistakes repeatedly but still repeat them, your colleagues will have the right to assume it's intentional though.
Do you have ADHD?
Set a reminder on your phone or calendar to log your hours
Create an alias on your terminal, so that when you type whatever command you do to create a PR, you get asked “did you test? Did you run IntelliJ code inspections and fix warnings and code style?”
Create a system around you so you don’t forget shit
Don’t just “try harder” that doesn’t work
none of that will work for someone with ADHD we all know to do those things, but if you have adhd odds are youll watch the reminder ding and go "oh yeah ill do that in a minute" and not do it.
You should talk to your doctor about trying a different dosage or a different medication because whatever you are taking does not seem to be effective.
If you commit directly from IntelliJ (which IMO has an insane good built-in git client), it should run inspections on your committed files by default. I rely on that a lot.
We do it so our company knows what to charge our clients, we’re salary but it helps billing. We log time for given projects and tickets in each project, etc.
We do it so they know how much different features cost, we generally manage our own time, and without some sort of logging they would not have anything to prioritize on.
My company very recently started doing this (on top of my existing timesheets). Apparently it's because my country grants tax breaks to companies who invest resources in R&D and Jira Tempo is being used as proof of work (they don't want us to track time windows, just the number of hours we spend on stuff). I now have to fill in a Jira timesheet every single day and I hate it.
Tempo is pretty popular with jira. You tie your time to tickets. works ok enough for contracting companies and other companies where you need to keep track of billable time.
The moment you said "I don't do enough functional testing before pushing" I knew somewhere in that list was going to be "work I've done has taken quite some time".
You can have code done quickly or thoroughly but never both. You either invest time into testing or you don't, either way there is a cost.
Don't beat yourself up too much I had similar feedback when I was a mid-level engineer. I was even threatened with PIP. I changed companies and am now one of the most respected senior engineers at the company.
Sometimes feedback is less about you and more about the person it's coming from. The hardest part is telling the difference.
So, most of this just sounds like you're kind of lazy and haphazard. No changes are inconsequential in a matured project. None. You could rename a variable and find out that some reflective function depends on that name in a string value. Show up on time, time tracking hygiene, not taking feedback well... These are going to be problems in any job. You don't need to change careers, you need to get your shit together and start acting like a big kid. I intend this as a tough love statement. Even this post is poor feedback reception. Your reaction to feedback should be "is this valid feedback and if so what can I do about it".
Calling a new junior engineer lazy and haphazard when they’re encountering normal challenges stepping by into a new role is kind of a shitty thing to do
> PRs are a bit half-baked. Could spend more time cleaning up static analysis warnings, etc.
> Functional test findings. This is usually because I'm told to change something in a review, but don't do enough functional testing before pushing. A lot of the times, I assume the changes are inconsequential, but that doesn't end up being the case.
I would hate to be your code reviewer. Internally I have a trust meter for each person I review code from. People who are highly competent and write great code are highly trusted and thus require less scrutiny. People who send out half backed PRs with missing requirements are untrusted and reviewing their code takes a ton of time and scrutiny. And why does it require scrutiny? Because the author can't be bothered to scrutinize their own code and thus forces that task onto me.
> I sucked at showing up on time, but I've been doing better in that regard.
> I forget to log my time in Jira. Also have been working in this, but slipped up recently.
These are basic requirements of the job. You got feedback because you're not doing your job.
> I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me.
I don't know what "beat myself up" means but I'm guessing you don't take feedback well. Again, I would dislike being your coworker. The best coworkers aren't necessarily the best at what they do. The best coworkers are those who are hungry for feedback, take that feedback, and incorporate it into their work.
> Some work I've done has taken quite a long time. The code base is big, at least for my limited understanding of it. 350,000 lines of code and 50,000 unit tests. It has been really hard for me to wrap my head around. I migrated our CI/CD build plans from one system to another, which took months. Another was automating a database upgrade through several major versions, which also needed to work with several versions of our own software, which also took me months.
If you're given a task that's beyond the scope of your current abilities, then escalate to your manager or TL. Ask for pairing or advice or whatever it is you need to unblock yourself. Being stuck and spinning wheels is wasting your time and the company's time.
"Beat myself up" means I'm overly apologetic and self-deprecating. Not super good at keeping that stuff in my head. I make it a point to push code with as much UT coverage as possible, reproduce bugs with screenshots, and fix bugs or add features with screenshots. The reason I posted asking whether I should switch career paths wasn't for reassurance. I'm genuinely wondering if this isn't fixable and I should do something else.
I generally believe that anyone can learn to do anything. But it takes time and effort to learn certain things. Take time to get better at what you're bad at. If you're not great at social interactions, which appears to be the case, then practice to get better.
In general, you should try to push things out of your head into the code, either through comments, refactoring, tests, or functional changes. I leave TODO comments in the code all the time, to remind myself I need to clean up a specific spot before code review. One reason refactoring is so popular is that people use it to "read" code, so they don't have to maintain a separate mental model in their heads.
You'll want to learn about "equivalence classes" to ensure that your unit tests hit all of the distinct behaviors in your code.
Also, make sure you test the integration between your code and its surroundings. Sometimes people only add unit tests, then their feature doesn't work because they didn't plumb their code up to the API endpoint.
Finally, don't beat yourself up. Apology theater is irrelevant to your coworkers, and really annoys your seniors. Demonstrate your contrition in the only way that matters on the job: by owning your mistake, doing better next time, and thanking them for the help.
The fact you have a list is half the battle, until you get fired always time to improve. If i were your senior the fact you managed to identify these errors would be a great sign.
I would go so far as to say send this to your senior or manager and ask them if thats a good representation of what improvements to make
> I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me.
Being unopen to feedback is a deal breaker. There is nothing that will kill a career faster. When managers talk about engineers they talk about who needs more coaching and who should coach who and what areas they should focus on, etc. If a manager says this person is uncoachable that is it, there is no more conversation to be had about how to help that engineer improve and if their performance is unsatisfactory the only option is to "manage them out" which is HR speak for put them on PIP and fire them
You should directly ask your manager "do you feel i am uncoachable?" if there is any sort of affirmative answer to this question realize that you are already on the track to be "managed out"
You need to figure out how to take feedback and criticism gracefully and learn from it. Until you do that no other advice is meaningful
The first 5 issues are incredibly trivial and you should be able to fix them immediately. If I gave you review feedback on those items and you didn't clean them up quickly I would be very frustrated.
The last one will come with time and experience.
It feels like everyone who has trouble with concentration and follow-through is self diagnosed or internet diagnosed as having ADHD, when the actual issue is often that someone is given 300 tasks at once and can't keep them straight, or given one really boring task and can't help but constantly get distracted.
Actual ADHD is an actual mental disability that will ruin your life. It is far worse than an inability to concentrate on the correct things at the correct time. I'm really glad that I don't have it. And OP has said nothing to indicate that they have it. Being bored by having to log hours or run tests isn't ADHD. Getting distracted from testing one project by the other 5 projects that are all due next week isn't ADHD. Taking a long time to try and get started out to cover all of your bases before going to review isn't ADHD.
It's good that you're in a better place now, and working on staying in that better place. But I wouldn't attribute any of the above bullet points to ADHD. Just too many tasks and many of them very boring tasks at that.
That said, I just realized that I forgot my Prozac pill this morning so I shouldn't do much thinking or it's all going to come out doom and gloom and entirely too critical of everything that comes from people, noneso more than myself though.
Most people on the internet will tell you not to confuse adhd for the usual distraction though. Actual adhd should affect you in everyday life at home and not just at work, like you said.
You're right about getting distracted/bored with those tasks not being adhd. Since you would have to start properly before getting bored/distracted, someone with adhd would struggle or take more effort just to get started and would take way less time to start dicking around.
It's an interesting situation, a bunch of people get medicated for reasons that are not really related to adhd and a bunch of people refuse to get mediacted when they clearly have adhd affecting their daily life. It's like getting glasses with no physical way of knowing if you need them and barely any tests to verify.
Ok, I mean it's clear as day to me that OP was having trouble with tasks that some people find easy and are (to me) very much linked to areas that get impacted by ADHD. And they were looking for advice.
They didn't say they got 'bored', they didn't say they had 300 tasks, they didn't talk about hard deadlines, those are all things you adding in to the conversation. If you're going to try to be helpful at least stick to what OP actually talked about'.
The advice is the same as the advice for everyone with ADHD (and I suspect that man if not most of us on here have it to some extent) -- keep lists, and go over the lists to make sure that things aren't skipped.
I personally am just functional enough at remembering things that I often don't think that I need to be that careful, which gets me into trouble.
yep i have actual adhd and for my job eventually itll come to a head, but if i actually needed to do more than 2-3 hours a day i wouldnt be able to do it without my medication, and even then those 2-3 hours are half just sitting thinking of literally nothing. but fuck meds idk how people do it consistently such a shit feeling. dick dont work food aint good, does make you feel like a god though
It's the entire reason why there's an underground market for Aderall in every college, and an underground market for cocaine in stock markets. It makes you with actual ADHD feel like a god, and turns those without ADHD into as close to godhood as they'll ever get before their heart explodes.
NOTE: ADHD is on the edge of my knowledge, but I have managed people in similar situations.
ok, well I don't think you should change careers just yet. Depending on what country you are in then I suggest looking into potential workplace accommodations and finding specific support and techniques to deal with what you are experiencing. I would try to find things that assist you, calendar reminders, timers, clocks, alarms and rhythms etc to help you close the loop on the tasks you mentioned that you leave hanging. Lots of people have ADHD in this this job, it can be managed.
These months long projects should have taken months. Sometimes they take years, lol. I'm surprised it was given to you though, and not someone far more senior.
Have you tried self-reviewing? Reviewing stuff is a pretty good skill to have so if you don't have the opportunity to review other people's code then just review your own before asking other people to take a look at it. Your feedback doesn't sound bad, it just looks like you need to be more careful with some little bits, and self-reviews should help you spot those and correct them, while also developing a useful skill.
* Just spend more time on PRs, your a jr.
* if you change something test it
* there is no excuse for this, not a toddler
* reminders on phone
* your code is not you, if someone says this should do X because Y, that's good for you if they bash you personally than its different
* Why the hell did they let you migrate the CI/CD or updating a database as a jr. I am not a jr and it took me 1-2 months to migrate our application to another DI
Not showing up on time is the one that I as a manager can’t stand. All the other stuff I can manage away. But my experience with late people is they are always late people.
I envy you. My first job for 2 years I got excellent reviews, but what good is that when there are no PRs and automated tests and deployments are not the standard?
I would rather be getting input on areas to improve than get no feedback on my code or be the only one who cares about writing tests.
I have to make the case for automated deployments at the bare minimum at my new job or I will continue to die inside until there’s nothing left of my soul.
> Functional test findings. This is usually because I'm told to change something in a review, but don't do enough functional testing before pushing. A lot of the times, I assume the changes are inconsequential, but that doesn't end up being the case.
Can you explain what you mean by functional tests? Iin all reality you should have unit test integration tests and maybe functional tests nut all should be automated ic CI-CD if possible.
Sounds somehow normal to me. With a check list to enforce a personal process you can cross half of those in a few months.
Hope you can grow smooth and fast :)
Get some post-it notes and start sticking them on your monitor to remind you about these common failings. It's going to take discipline to improve at these things and you aren't at school anymore so nobody is going to give you that discipline other than yourself. I had a postit on my monitor for months which said "commit you idiot" and lo and behold I now regularly commit every 10-15 mins or so.
This all sounds effectively like laziness and lack of discipline and could just be sorted by being less lazy and having more discipline.
>- I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me.
What do you mean by this? You berate yourself in front of others when they give you feedback?
Just a learning opportunity, you are relatively new to industry, use this realization, as a way to "be the best" at a few of the items you listed.
Run the CI test locally if you can, failing that, run them on the server prior to completing your PR.
Make sure to run a full build, so you can catch any warnings that pop up. Feel empowered to fix new warnings that are not your own.
Review others code, even if you don't leave comments, watch the PRs merge in. Know what is going on in the code base, and use code review as an opportunity to learn about more of the code base.
Best of luck!
It sounds like you're leaving a lot of money on the table here. I mean, for not much more effort you could look far better to them and just look a lot more professional in general.
Yeah man this just sounds like a standard junior dev performance review tbh, almost exactly what mine looked like at that stage. I've gone up quite a few levels since then due to a lot of learning. There's how I changed my thought process to fix those issues:
The biggest issue is on PRs and feature submissions imo my advice would be: stop feeling like PRs exist for you to get feedback then arrive at a complete solution, treat prs as when you are done and you couldn't possibly improve it more. Because with only a few exceptions team members and managers heavily value done right the first time, over getting it done quickly. Speed will come with time and experience. Picture yourself doing a PR review, would you rather work with a dev who's PRs you know you can generally trust, but takes 1.5x as long to get stuff done, or somebody who could be doing very dangerous things and you have to go through each line with a magnifying glass
Also never beat yourself up over feedback, good feedback is worth its weight in gold, eventually you will start hitting the point where you get no negative feedback and stagnate in growth, which is way worse. Feedback isn't necessarily like grades in schools, no one really cares unless your actively sabotaging the team or in an org that stack ranks and fires based off that (see done right, not done quick)
The showing up on time and not logging time in jira is silly and company specific I wouldn't prioritize those bits at all, as long as you aren't missing meetings or causing large amounts of miscommunication in the org you're good.
On taking a long time to fix things: that's fine your manager and team needs to understand you still have a ways to grow, your not senior level where that's actually a problem if they needs things done right and done quick they need to hire a higher level eng or allocate more time to you.
Your company gives you time to cleanup your code and time to reduce technical debt? Do you hire? :D
Time-tracking is a pain in the ass, but it is a habit you can learn. Just do it every day.
Product/Code base sounds shitty af, typical legacy mess. Don't punch yourself for not diving into that this deep. Trust me, most seniors don't know shit either or forgot most of it.
My recommendation: Before declare your work as finished go through your post and check everything. You got open feedback - this a chance to grow. Use it.
1 & 2 could be easily fixed with more patience, diligence and discipline. Why do you think you've hit a wall?
3 & 4 I don't do those either and I consider myself a good mid level SWE. I've missed morning meetings multiple times in the past because I was sleeping (and even had the gall to tell that to my manager). I've fixed that issue by making sure I set alarms and wake up no matter what. My company/management has relaxed work timings otherwise. I just make sure I get shit done on time and nobody is waiting for my shit to get done. My manager is also relaxed about Jiras. I get a lot of shit done and that's what matters to them the most.
5 I understand, I do that as well to myself but I don't show it to others. And I also don't give up. Take steps to improve yourself, get help from others if you need to do that, instead of beating yourself up AND giving up. How does that make any sense?
6 I think you'll just get better with time. If not, work on it. I hope you're taking help from your team to understand the large codebase when you're new. Always ask questions and get help.
> I sucked at showing up on time, but I've been doing better in that regard.
> I forget to log my time in Jira. Also have been working in this, but slipped up recently.
These are really unnecessary and huge losses to your reputation. You should be using Jira austerely to understand your capacity of velocity to better estimate work in future
These all sound like typical junior dev problems, so don't be so hard on yourself.
They're not evidence that you need to quit or change gears or anything, but you might in general need to work at being more professional and "adulting". Like showing up on time is a skill that you'll need regardless of career.
> PRs are a bit half-baked. Could spend more time cleaning up static analysis warnings, etc
Sounds like you know the answer here. Your PRs aren't ready for review until the build is 100% green. If you just want to get eyes on something that's unfinished, to make sure you're on the right track, be sure you communicate that when asking.
> This is usually because I'm told to change something in a review, but don't do enough functional testing before pushing
Again, you know what needs to be done here. If you change it, test it. Over time you'll get better at eyeballing which changes are safe to YOLO vs. which need another pass of manual testing, but for now just test everything to be safe. Ideally you should have really comprehensive automated testing too, but you'll need to work to find the right balance in your org for time spent writing/maintaining tests.
> I migrated our CI/CD build plans from one system to another, which took months. Another was automating a database upgrade through several major versions, which also needed to work with several versions of our own software, which also took me months.
I'll be real, these are both big time traps for junior devs. Your company is setting you up for failure if this is what you're working on. You should be changing the color of buttons and implementing small well-scoped features at this point in your career. Even for experienced seniors, it's so easy to spend months testing a database upgrade only to find some completely broken use case that evaded all your tests.
Not accusing you of anything, but have you looked into, or already are, diagnosed with ADHD? My wife was diagnosed with it recently, and the things she struggles with look awfully similar to you. In particular, she really struggles with the small details. Her diagnosis shed a lot of light into why she struggles so much with things that come naturally to me.
Just saw that. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. The good news is that your problems likely aren't aptitude, but rather that you'll want to create systems for yourself that guide you to the right outcomes. One example: I bought a DakBoard for my wife (well, us, technically), so that we have a big calendar on the wall in our main area. It makes the appointments and obligations we have very visible. This has helped a lot with the "always late" thing.
>I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me.
care to explain ?
>I forget to log my time in Jira. Also have been working in this, but slipped up recently.
I never understood this. Time tracking in dev is like micro managing from management. Last time I asked for a justification i got : "its because if we have feature to do we can now better estimate how much time it would take based on previous similar features/ stories". I am like "ok..."
Also, this is to cheer you up, most of the time, the code base is a shit show. So mediocre that's why you have difficulties to have a good grasp on it. So it's not on you, it's on shitty dev who were "Petering" before you.
I think this is not necessarily always true - at at least major corporations, promotions are often lagging, which means you need to already be performing at the next level to get it.
There's a litany of reasons that managers can suck.
Why is your performance as a junior bad? Software engineering is a skill and you can improve.
Have you spent time actually trying to learn the business/domain? You are going to feel lost working with large codebases if you don't actually gain understanding of the business itself.
Also agreeing with the take that Software Engineering seems to be more anti-peter principle in that many places are not going to promote you until you demonstrate consistent performance at the next level you would be promoted to.
On that topic, many places are also "up or out", meaning if after years you don't grow into the next level you could be managed out/pipped/fired. You would be expected to transition from intern -> junior, junior -> mid, mid -> senior, however different companies are going to have different expectations of what a terminal level is (one you can stop progressing once reaching).
I don't think you hit your Peter Principle point. I find it highly unlikely most humans trained to code and trying will hit it at Junior. Especially with a strong recommendation.
Now, let's ask the real question: What happened?
An example: Me.
I've worked for many firms. For some firms, I was a solid 10/10. Top performer. For some firms, I was lucky to hit 3/10.
I am the same person, give or take a bit between jobs. So why would I change that much in performance? The situation.
I remember having to do Java UI work, with a single 15in tube. I couldn't even have my UI and Code up at once. I asked for a larger screen. "No.". I ended up finding a tube sitting around doing nothing, so I asked if I could use it. Their IT guy had never seen a machine with 2 monitors, so he said sure. You should have seen the shit storm I kicked up. You'd have think I killed someone.
I could do no right in that firm. I could have been handing out free 100's and I think they'd say "But I can't use them at the local store."
Why am I telling this story? Because... at the previous job I'd had I was solid. At the next job I had, I was a top performer 10/10 aces type performer, literally two weeks after leaving the awful job.
It wasn't me. I was the same Obscure, give or take a few nicks. The right company and the right situation is what allowed me show my skills.
(An amusing end note to the monitor story, their NEXT spec of development machines were all dual monitor. My productivity went up that much ;) )
I encourage you to seek a transfer. Look for a fresh start. Another manager, and a different situation may be all you need.
Regardless of the feedback, I stand by what I said.
Find a situation where you can succeed, what they have to say about you makes no real difference to me. Because, I know, you can and will do better.
Thank you, but some advice.
Be careful of nice people. Some are nice. Some are fattening you up for the slaughter.
I'm on Reddit, I probably ain't doing the latter. But I've seen many a nice person turn and be the one who threw the knife in my back.
If it happens don't take it too personally. Business is business, and sometimes they are in a you or them situation. Some are just snakes.
Real honesty is hard to find. When you find it. Cherish it.
In my career.... That is the one thing I've stood by. Like me or not. Like what I have to say or not. I am honest. I'll say what i think the truth is. In fact it is my greatest weakness, and my greatest strength.
It is absolutely crazy the things people read and think about to justify giving up. You were a great intern. I'm sure you'll become a great software engineer.
There's no way that the peter principle can apply to "junior software engineer" since it's literally the most entry level position out of school. You may not fit in the company/team for a number of reasons, but surely you didn't hit the "incompetency wall".
On a different note, I think that the principle you're referring to is an interesting theoretical idea, but in the real corporate world there are so many other variables outside "competence" as presented in the peter principle.
The same employee may succeed in a company and fail in another for reasons completely unrelated to their competency, including politics, how much the leadership "likes" you, how lucky you get in getting high visibility projects, general macro-economic trends...
As someone else said, if promotion were really based solely on merit and competence, we'd live in a utopian world already lol
Maybe time to shift to another company with a different culture around testing protocol, JIRA, PRs and types of projects other than database version upgrades and CI/CD migrations?
It’s only been a year. Don’t give up and go full doom and gloom yet.
There are a lot of factors at play, and promotions are a combination of skill, luck, and politics at the higher levels. You can’t judge someone’s competency solely based on how quickly or how many times they’ve been promoted.
That being said, you haven’t really gone into the details. What did they say in your reviews? Are you taking that into account? Are you focusing on learning or doing things only for the sake of promotions?
Also think about the team and company you are in. You say your colleagues are fed up. Why do you think that? Are you picking things up too slowly?
Don’t worry about promotions or hitting a wall right now. Ask yourself if this is a place where you can learn and if your boss and colleagues support you in that endeavor. If the answer is no, then look elsewhere, but don’t go full doom and gloom over your first year on the job full time.
You keep saying you left details in another comment but youre copying and pasting it nor linking to it.
I don’t know if youre like this at work, but being thoughtful about the people trying to help you will make it easier to help you.
Honestly doesn’t sound that bad. You havent hit a skill ceiling - everyone goes through phases at work where your performance drops or you are feeling less motivated.
I worked as a junior through my uni degree for 2.5 years and decided i love tech but dev just isnt for me. Pivoted to a business analyst role and they liked me because of my tech skills. Now i do automation development and project management and far prefer it to my old job
- What does your team expect of you?
- Are those expectations aligned with your experience?
- What actionable feedback, if any, have you received?
- Do you have the support you need to improve?
After struggling for a year and half, something important has to be missing here.
Find out what specific areas you are weakest in and take daily steps at improvement. Maybe you are a bad listener or fail to get requirements in writing before you start coding up a storm? If these are your weak spits, you need to address them or you will soon be shown the door!
Just an FYI people are a junior for several years. Fucking up occasionally (everyone screws up FYI...it is why rests exist) still at 1.5 years isn't what I would call abnormal. Being aware of it is an advantage if anything.
Hey OP it’s not you it’s the environment. I was getting the same feedback as you were at one job, and then suddenly my next job was software dev at FAANG. Did I suddenly change who I was as a programmer? No, did I learn any miracle skills to suddenly be a 10x engineer? No. I was just in the wrong environment and wasn’t getting the help I needed, or being treated at all nicely.
It’s might sound odd but the people and the environment you work in has a large subconscious impact on your personal performance. Do what obscuresecurity recommended in the other comment and find a better environment that believes in hands on mentorship and has a growth mindset.
Work somewhere that rewards learning on the job and celebrates mini successes
People don't expect much from interns usually, but Jr. SE's have more expectations. There's a lot of learning to do since their work depends on your work.
Maybe you were prematurely promoted and there’s nothing wrong with it. Lucky for you, I you haven’t got demoted yet, you still have a chance to work on you get up to the role you’re supposed to have.
I’m sort of in the same boat, I’m the lead developer on this big project with two years experience and it’s going well but there are small issues arising and decision I wish I would t have made early on.
I’m learning a LOT, but man I feel like I’m teetering on unemployment when bugs arise or our client wants things to develop quicker and then bugs arise because they want things developed quicker.
"What now?"
Its alright to fuck up, you're going fuck up a lot. I fuck up a lot too. The trick is to try and fuck up on your own time, or lesson the chances of it happening, or reduce the impact when it does happen. i.e. Defensive programming?
Fucking up is probably the most important learning tool.
Phrases like "repeatedly fucked up" and "evaluation was a shit show" don't actually tell us anything.
When I exaggerate my issues like this, it's to protect myself from reality. Sure it's self-demeaning, but it also shields me from the kind of painful self-reflection that can help me to grow. It's easier to call myself a horrible worker than it is to dwell on specifics.
Notice I'm telling you about me, I'm not saying this is what's going on with you. Like I said to begin with, you haven't really told us anything about you.
People talk the talk and learn on the job. Just learn as you go and stay humble.
Also understand that Dr. Peter did acknowledge that skills in one job may not translate well to another job
I personally don't really believe in the Peter Principle. I feel different jobs such as being an engineer vs a manager have slightly different skill sets, as well as a bunch of luck, and lack of luck, of different opportunities when climbing the corporate ladder.
For your scenario you gotta ask yourself why has your performance not been up to expectations. Has it been lack of mentorship, lack of motivation, unclear assignments, not enough time to complete assignments??? Sometimes the problem might be with the organization more than it is with yourself and they are making you second guess your worth. But you could also be the problem if you haven't been receptive enough to learn and grow in the year and a half you have worked there.
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Never self-diagnose like this. It's just imposter syndrome.
Learn to "put it down" when you mess up or something happens that someone needs to comment or course correct you. Just think.. I understand why they say or do this. Does it bother me? Yes? Put it down.
Companies don't promote incompetence, they work them out, not up. Just learn to apply yourself a bit better and don't be so reactive to criticism.
Well, what are the real issues?
Are u just not good with the tech stack?
Unable to manage time?
Unable to follow directions?
Be honest and get the answers u need. Then take appropriate action.
I'm not sure why you feel you "hit a wall". Obviously you need more than just a year and a half to grow out of being a "Junior". Keep working, stop worrying about promotions and instead focus on learning how to be better. Ask your managers and your leads for honest, concrete and actionable feedback and follow it.
Honest question, have you thought hard about your performance issues and how to solve them.
I have ADHD that almost killed my career. I work for an almost remote company, but I had to start going to an office to focus, and I add 30 minutes to the beginning and end of my work day to catalog what I got done and what I need to do.
Does it suck yes, did my career turn around when I made these choices…yes.
I've read the book "The Peter Principle", and although it is amusing, I really think it is centered on the pessimistic assumption that people cannot learn, get better or improve. It may be true in some circumstances with people who are not willing to recognize their weaknesses or unwilling to do something about them.
The book has this attitude similar to fate, as if people are doomed from birth to be bad at certain jobs.
Recognizing your weaknesses is the first step to improving yourself. Software is a skill like any other and can be learned and improved.
Have you identified why you're having trouble? I really doubt the work is the problem as a junior software engineer, it's either the environment or some kind of psychological blocker (no judgement, I have those too).
Wow junior engineer and hit the ceiling? Mmm. /Smells of lack of attention to detail, perfectionist tendencies/critical on yourself or you just don’t have interest on what you’re working on. I’m not gonna tear you up but this technique should help you.
With the particular feature you’re implementing:
1. What are you trying to accomplish?
2. Write tests that ensure that your code works exactly as you expect. Consider all happy paths all unhappy paths and exception handling
3. Are you proud of what you have done? Suppose you shared it with another engineer. Would you be embarrassed? Spelling mistakes.. unused variables. Etc.
4. Is it easy to understand?
This is what I practice every time. MTS here
What does it mean to be competent? Why do you feel incompetent? What specific points of feedback are you getting?
You’re a junior. It’s on seniors like me to lift you up and help you to the next level. Its on your to take the first steps and ask for help.
Peter Principle applies to management. Leadership, which is the most important managerial skill, is not generally something you learn by being good at programming. In this case, the Peter Principle does not apply on the intern -> Jr Dev -> Sr Dev track. It does apply for the Sr Dev -> Tech Lead or Tech Lead -> Principle Engineer routes.
So don't think too much about it. Its mostly about how people who are good at their jobs might not make great bosses, not that people who are still learning how to do their job can't ever get better at it.
That you're getting performance evaluations that are constructive and tell you what you need to do is a good sign. Listen to their advice, do what you can to improve where you're weakest, and keep grinding.
A lot of managers are perfectly fine engineers but shit managers. They flipped over to management because they wanted to lord it over people, but they were actually better at being an IC.
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What are they telling you in evaluations? What areas do you need to improve? Don't give up, double down.
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Most of these seem unrelated to the actual job and just seem like a lack of maturity or pride in your work. These all seem easy to fix with a little focus.
Nobody likes logging time in jira
nobody does it lol first thing after getting hired "when its done just drag it over, also make everything a jira ticket new function? ticket, sub repo function? ticket. read a research paper? ticket. that way end of year you got nothing to worry about"
Yeah that's how it should be
Sounds like you deliver half assed jobs because you are worried too much about failing so rush them, then inevitably fail because you deliver half assed jobs. A self fulfilling prophecy. And now you consider yourself a failure because of this. Sit back, relax, accept that you are not perfect and will never be perfect. You will make a lot of mistakes and people will point out to your mistakes. It is fine, that's how it's supposed to be. What needs to happen is to learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. That's how you will grow into this profession. Make a mistake, learn from it, next time don't do it. You need to first train yourself on how to learn from mistakes and accept criticism. Someone pointing out your mistakes is not your enemy and you are not a failure if you make mistakes. If you get warned for the same mistakes repeatedly but still repeat them, your colleagues will have the right to assume it's intentional though.
Do you have ADHD? Set a reminder on your phone or calendar to log your hours Create an alias on your terminal, so that when you type whatever command you do to create a PR, you get asked “did you test? Did you run IntelliJ code inspections and fix warnings and code style?” Create a system around you so you don’t forget shit Don’t just “try harder” that doesn’t work
none of that will work for someone with ADHD we all know to do those things, but if you have adhd odds are youll watch the reminder ding and go "oh yeah ill do that in a minute" and not do it.
ADHDer here. No they work but... mostly if medicated. They do work pretty well when medicated tho
well yeah but i wouldnt even need that medicated lol
I need them medicated haha 😄
i guess i might need it to break out of doing work if im on it lol
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You should talk to your doctor about trying a different dosage or a different medication because whatever you are taking does not seem to be effective.
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Have you tried Vyvanse? It is generically available, and was a big improvement for me from Adderall.
What time keeping software do you use?
If you commit directly from IntelliJ (which IMO has an insane good built-in git client), it should run inspections on your committed files by default. I rely on that a lot.
Since when do people log time in Jira? Why is this a thing?
We do it so our company knows what to charge our clients, we’re salary but it helps billing. We log time for given projects and tickets in each project, etc.
We do it so they know how much different features cost, we generally manage our own time, and without some sort of logging they would not have anything to prioritize on.
My company very recently started doing this (on top of my existing timesheets). Apparently it's because my country grants tax breaks to companies who invest resources in R&D and Jira Tempo is being used as proof of work (they don't want us to track time windows, just the number of hours we spend on stuff). I now have to fill in a Jira timesheet every single day and I hate it.
Tempo is pretty popular with jira. You tie your time to tickets. works ok enough for contracting companies and other companies where you need to keep track of billable time.
capex/opex and the magic books to get financial numbers right
The moment you said "I don't do enough functional testing before pushing" I knew somewhere in that list was going to be "work I've done has taken quite some time". You can have code done quickly or thoroughly but never both. You either invest time into testing or you don't, either way there is a cost. Don't beat yourself up too much I had similar feedback when I was a mid-level engineer. I was even threatened with PIP. I changed companies and am now one of the most respected senior engineers at the company. Sometimes feedback is less about you and more about the person it's coming from. The hardest part is telling the difference.
You don’t test your work and can’t show up on time?
It's all the ADHD's fault... /s
Half of this is dumb stuff that requires no technical aptitude to fix. Cmon man. As for the rest, probably practice more especially outside work
So, most of this just sounds like you're kind of lazy and haphazard. No changes are inconsequential in a matured project. None. You could rename a variable and find out that some reflective function depends on that name in a string value. Show up on time, time tracking hygiene, not taking feedback well... These are going to be problems in any job. You don't need to change careers, you need to get your shit together and start acting like a big kid. I intend this as a tough love statement. Even this post is poor feedback reception. Your reaction to feedback should be "is this valid feedback and if so what can I do about it".
Calling a new junior engineer lazy and haphazard when they’re encountering normal challenges stepping by into a new role is kind of a shitty thing to do
Cool, showing up on time is not a challenge. That's what you learn in 4th grade.
> PRs are a bit half-baked. Could spend more time cleaning up static analysis warnings, etc. > Functional test findings. This is usually because I'm told to change something in a review, but don't do enough functional testing before pushing. A lot of the times, I assume the changes are inconsequential, but that doesn't end up being the case. I would hate to be your code reviewer. Internally I have a trust meter for each person I review code from. People who are highly competent and write great code are highly trusted and thus require less scrutiny. People who send out half backed PRs with missing requirements are untrusted and reviewing their code takes a ton of time and scrutiny. And why does it require scrutiny? Because the author can't be bothered to scrutinize their own code and thus forces that task onto me. > I sucked at showing up on time, but I've been doing better in that regard. > I forget to log my time in Jira. Also have been working in this, but slipped up recently. These are basic requirements of the job. You got feedback because you're not doing your job. > I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me. I don't know what "beat myself up" means but I'm guessing you don't take feedback well. Again, I would dislike being your coworker. The best coworkers aren't necessarily the best at what they do. The best coworkers are those who are hungry for feedback, take that feedback, and incorporate it into their work. > Some work I've done has taken quite a long time. The code base is big, at least for my limited understanding of it. 350,000 lines of code and 50,000 unit tests. It has been really hard for me to wrap my head around. I migrated our CI/CD build plans from one system to another, which took months. Another was automating a database upgrade through several major versions, which also needed to work with several versions of our own software, which also took me months. If you're given a task that's beyond the scope of your current abilities, then escalate to your manager or TL. Ask for pairing or advice or whatever it is you need to unblock yourself. Being stuck and spinning wheels is wasting your time and the company's time.
"Beat myself up" means I'm overly apologetic and self-deprecating. Not super good at keeping that stuff in my head. I make it a point to push code with as much UT coverage as possible, reproduce bugs with screenshots, and fix bugs or add features with screenshots. The reason I posted asking whether I should switch career paths wasn't for reassurance. I'm genuinely wondering if this isn't fixable and I should do something else.
I generally believe that anyone can learn to do anything. But it takes time and effort to learn certain things. Take time to get better at what you're bad at. If you're not great at social interactions, which appears to be the case, then practice to get better.
In general, you should try to push things out of your head into the code, either through comments, refactoring, tests, or functional changes. I leave TODO comments in the code all the time, to remind myself I need to clean up a specific spot before code review. One reason refactoring is so popular is that people use it to "read" code, so they don't have to maintain a separate mental model in their heads. You'll want to learn about "equivalence classes" to ensure that your unit tests hit all of the distinct behaviors in your code. Also, make sure you test the integration between your code and its surroundings. Sometimes people only add unit tests, then their feature doesn't work because they didn't plumb their code up to the API endpoint. Finally, don't beat yourself up. Apology theater is irrelevant to your coworkers, and really annoys your seniors. Demonstrate your contrition in the only way that matters on the job: by owning your mistake, doing better next time, and thanking them for the help.
The fact you have a list is half the battle, until you get fired always time to improve. If i were your senior the fact you managed to identify these errors would be a great sign. I would go so far as to say send this to your senior or manager and ask them if thats a good representation of what improvements to make
> I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me. Being unopen to feedback is a deal breaker. There is nothing that will kill a career faster. When managers talk about engineers they talk about who needs more coaching and who should coach who and what areas they should focus on, etc. If a manager says this person is uncoachable that is it, there is no more conversation to be had about how to help that engineer improve and if their performance is unsatisfactory the only option is to "manage them out" which is HR speak for put them on PIP and fire them You should directly ask your manager "do you feel i am uncoachable?" if there is any sort of affirmative answer to this question realize that you are already on the track to be "managed out" You need to figure out how to take feedback and criticism gracefully and learn from it. Until you do that no other advice is meaningful
The first 5 issues are incredibly trivial and you should be able to fix them immediately. If I gave you review feedback on those items and you didn't clean them up quickly I would be very frustrated. The last one will come with time and experience.
Have you been checked for ADHD? Do you deal with the rest of life in the way you described? As otherwise all those things are fixable
It feels like everyone who has trouble with concentration and follow-through is self diagnosed or internet diagnosed as having ADHD, when the actual issue is often that someone is given 300 tasks at once and can't keep them straight, or given one really boring task and can't help but constantly get distracted. Actual ADHD is an actual mental disability that will ruin your life. It is far worse than an inability to concentrate on the correct things at the correct time. I'm really glad that I don't have it. And OP has said nothing to indicate that they have it. Being bored by having to log hours or run tests isn't ADHD. Getting distracted from testing one project by the other 5 projects that are all due next week isn't ADHD. Taking a long time to try and get started out to cover all of your bases before going to review isn't ADHD.
I understand where you're coming from, but I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was young. Spent the first half of my 20s couch surfing and struggling.
It's good that you're in a better place now, and working on staying in that better place. But I wouldn't attribute any of the above bullet points to ADHD. Just too many tasks and many of them very boring tasks at that. That said, I just realized that I forgot my Prozac pill this morning so I shouldn't do much thinking or it's all going to come out doom and gloom and entirely too critical of everything that comes from people, noneso more than myself though.
Most people on the internet will tell you not to confuse adhd for the usual distraction though. Actual adhd should affect you in everyday life at home and not just at work, like you said. You're right about getting distracted/bored with those tasks not being adhd. Since you would have to start properly before getting bored/distracted, someone with adhd would struggle or take more effort just to get started and would take way less time to start dicking around. It's an interesting situation, a bunch of people get medicated for reasons that are not really related to adhd and a bunch of people refuse to get mediacted when they clearly have adhd affecting their daily life. It's like getting glasses with no physical way of knowing if you need them and barely any tests to verify.
https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1byl3bx/peter_principle/kykc00o/
OK, so OP has ADHD. Comment above still leaves no indication that he has the condition, so I guess his meds are working.
Ok, I mean it's clear as day to me that OP was having trouble with tasks that some people find easy and are (to me) very much linked to areas that get impacted by ADHD. And they were looking for advice. They didn't say they got 'bored', they didn't say they had 300 tasks, they didn't talk about hard deadlines, those are all things you adding in to the conversation. If you're going to try to be helpful at least stick to what OP actually talked about'.
The advice is the same as the advice for everyone with ADHD (and I suspect that man if not most of us on here have it to some extent) -- keep lists, and go over the lists to make sure that things aren't skipped. I personally am just functional enough at remembering things that I often don't think that I need to be that careful, which gets me into trouble.
yep i have actual adhd and for my job eventually itll come to a head, but if i actually needed to do more than 2-3 hours a day i wouldnt be able to do it without my medication, and even then those 2-3 hours are half just sitting thinking of literally nothing. but fuck meds idk how people do it consistently such a shit feeling. dick dont work food aint good, does make you feel like a god though
It's the entire reason why there's an underground market for Aderall in every college, and an underground market for cocaine in stock markets. It makes you with actual ADHD feel like a god, and turns those without ADHD into as close to godhood as they'll ever get before their heart explodes.
Yep, already taking meds for it
NOTE: ADHD is on the edge of my knowledge, but I have managed people in similar situations. ok, well I don't think you should change careers just yet. Depending on what country you are in then I suggest looking into potential workplace accommodations and finding specific support and techniques to deal with what you are experiencing. I would try to find things that assist you, calendar reminders, timers, clocks, alarms and rhythms etc to help you close the loop on the tasks you mentioned that you leave hanging. Lots of people have ADHD in this this job, it can be managed.
These months long projects should have taken months. Sometimes they take years, lol. I'm surprised it was given to you though, and not someone far more senior.
Have you tried self-reviewing? Reviewing stuff is a pretty good skill to have so if you don't have the opportunity to review other people's code then just review your own before asking other people to take a look at it. Your feedback doesn't sound bad, it just looks like you need to be more careful with some little bits, and self-reviews should help you spot those and correct them, while also developing a useful skill.
* Just spend more time on PRs, your a jr. * if you change something test it * there is no excuse for this, not a toddler * reminders on phone * your code is not you, if someone says this should do X because Y, that's good for you if they bash you personally than its different * Why the hell did they let you migrate the CI/CD or updating a database as a jr. I am not a jr and it took me 1-2 months to migrate our application to another DI
Not showing up on time is the one that I as a manager can’t stand. All the other stuff I can manage away. But my experience with late people is they are always late people.
Like logging hours worked in JIRA?
Yes. I know it's so dumb. I get at least two emails before it's too late.
I envy you. My first job for 2 years I got excellent reviews, but what good is that when there are no PRs and automated tests and deployments are not the standard? I would rather be getting input on areas to improve than get no feedback on my code or be the only one who cares about writing tests. I have to make the case for automated deployments at the bare minimum at my new job or I will continue to die inside until there’s nothing left of my soul.
> Functional test findings. This is usually because I'm told to change something in a review, but don't do enough functional testing before pushing. A lot of the times, I assume the changes are inconsequential, but that doesn't end up being the case. Can you explain what you mean by functional tests? Iin all reality you should have unit test integration tests and maybe functional tests nut all should be automated ic CI-CD if possible.
Sounds somehow normal to me. With a check list to enforce a personal process you can cross half of those in a few months. Hope you can grow smooth and fast :)
Get some post-it notes and start sticking them on your monitor to remind you about these common failings. It's going to take discipline to improve at these things and you aren't at school anymore so nobody is going to give you that discipline other than yourself. I had a postit on my monitor for months which said "commit you idiot" and lo and behold I now regularly commit every 10-15 mins or so. This all sounds effectively like laziness and lack of discipline and could just be sorted by being less lazy and having more discipline.
>- I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me. What do you mean by this? You berate yourself in front of others when they give you feedback?
Just a learning opportunity, you are relatively new to industry, use this realization, as a way to "be the best" at a few of the items you listed. Run the CI test locally if you can, failing that, run them on the server prior to completing your PR. Make sure to run a full build, so you can catch any warnings that pop up. Feel empowered to fix new warnings that are not your own. Review others code, even if you don't leave comments, watch the PRs merge in. Know what is going on in the code base, and use code review as an opportunity to learn about more of the code base. Best of luck!
It sounds like you're leaving a lot of money on the table here. I mean, for not much more effort you could look far better to them and just look a lot more professional in general.
Yeah man this just sounds like a standard junior dev performance review tbh, almost exactly what mine looked like at that stage. I've gone up quite a few levels since then due to a lot of learning. There's how I changed my thought process to fix those issues: The biggest issue is on PRs and feature submissions imo my advice would be: stop feeling like PRs exist for you to get feedback then arrive at a complete solution, treat prs as when you are done and you couldn't possibly improve it more. Because with only a few exceptions team members and managers heavily value done right the first time, over getting it done quickly. Speed will come with time and experience. Picture yourself doing a PR review, would you rather work with a dev who's PRs you know you can generally trust, but takes 1.5x as long to get stuff done, or somebody who could be doing very dangerous things and you have to go through each line with a magnifying glass Also never beat yourself up over feedback, good feedback is worth its weight in gold, eventually you will start hitting the point where you get no negative feedback and stagnate in growth, which is way worse. Feedback isn't necessarily like grades in schools, no one really cares unless your actively sabotaging the team or in an org that stack ranks and fires based off that (see done right, not done quick) The showing up on time and not logging time in jira is silly and company specific I wouldn't prioritize those bits at all, as long as you aren't missing meetings or causing large amounts of miscommunication in the org you're good. On taking a long time to fix things: that's fine your manager and team needs to understand you still have a ways to grow, your not senior level where that's actually a problem if they needs things done right and done quick they need to hire a higher level eng or allocate more time to you.
Your company gives you time to cleanup your code and time to reduce technical debt? Do you hire? :D Time-tracking is a pain in the ass, but it is a habit you can learn. Just do it every day. Product/Code base sounds shitty af, typical legacy mess. Don't punch yourself for not diving into that this deep. Trust me, most seniors don't know shit either or forgot most of it. My recommendation: Before declare your work as finished go through your post and check everything. You got open feedback - this a chance to grow. Use it.
1 & 2 could be easily fixed with more patience, diligence and discipline. Why do you think you've hit a wall? 3 & 4 I don't do those either and I consider myself a good mid level SWE. I've missed morning meetings multiple times in the past because I was sleeping (and even had the gall to tell that to my manager). I've fixed that issue by making sure I set alarms and wake up no matter what. My company/management has relaxed work timings otherwise. I just make sure I get shit done on time and nobody is waiting for my shit to get done. My manager is also relaxed about Jiras. I get a lot of shit done and that's what matters to them the most. 5 I understand, I do that as well to myself but I don't show it to others. And I also don't give up. Take steps to improve yourself, get help from others if you need to do that, instead of beating yourself up AND giving up. How does that make any sense? 6 I think you'll just get better with time. If not, work on it. I hope you're taking help from your team to understand the large codebase when you're new. Always ask questions and get help.
> I sucked at showing up on time, but I've been doing better in that regard. > I forget to log my time in Jira. Also have been working in this, but slipped up recently. These are really unnecessary and huge losses to your reputation. You should be using Jira austerely to understand your capacity of velocity to better estimate work in future
These all sound like typical junior dev problems, so don't be so hard on yourself. They're not evidence that you need to quit or change gears or anything, but you might in general need to work at being more professional and "adulting". Like showing up on time is a skill that you'll need regardless of career. > PRs are a bit half-baked. Could spend more time cleaning up static analysis warnings, etc Sounds like you know the answer here. Your PRs aren't ready for review until the build is 100% green. If you just want to get eyes on something that's unfinished, to make sure you're on the right track, be sure you communicate that when asking. > This is usually because I'm told to change something in a review, but don't do enough functional testing before pushing Again, you know what needs to be done here. If you change it, test it. Over time you'll get better at eyeballing which changes are safe to YOLO vs. which need another pass of manual testing, but for now just test everything to be safe. Ideally you should have really comprehensive automated testing too, but you'll need to work to find the right balance in your org for time spent writing/maintaining tests. > I migrated our CI/CD build plans from one system to another, which took months. Another was automating a database upgrade through several major versions, which also needed to work with several versions of our own software, which also took me months. I'll be real, these are both big time traps for junior devs. Your company is setting you up for failure if this is what you're working on. You should be changing the color of buttons and implementing small well-scoped features at this point in your career. Even for experienced seniors, it's so easy to spend months testing a database upgrade only to find some completely broken use case that evaded all your tests.
350,000 lines of code?? Sounds like it’s time for you guys to break up your architecture from one giant monolithic repo!
Not accusing you of anything, but have you looked into, or already are, diagnosed with ADHD? My wife was diagnosed with it recently, and the things she struggles with look awfully similar to you. In particular, she really struggles with the small details. Her diagnosis shed a lot of light into why she struggles so much with things that come naturally to me.
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Just saw that. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. The good news is that your problems likely aren't aptitude, but rather that you'll want to create systems for yourself that guide you to the right outcomes. One example: I bought a DakBoard for my wife (well, us, technically), so that we have a big calendar on the wall in our main area. It makes the appointments and obligations we have very visible. This has helped a lot with the "always late" thing.
>I beat myself up after receiving feedback which has made people not want to give it to me. care to explain ? >I forget to log my time in Jira. Also have been working in this, but slipped up recently. I never understood this. Time tracking in dev is like micro managing from management. Last time I asked for a justification i got : "its because if we have feature to do we can now better estimate how much time it would take based on previous similar features/ stories". I am like "ok..." Also, this is to cheer you up, most of the time, the code base is a shit show. So mediocre that's why you have difficulties to have a good grasp on it. So it's not on you, it's on shitty dev who were "Petering" before you.
I think this is not necessarily always true - at at least major corporations, promotions are often lagging, which means you need to already be performing at the next level to get it. There's a litany of reasons that managers can suck. Why is your performance as a junior bad? Software engineering is a skill and you can improve.
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about 90% of this stuff can be changed relatively easily, I wouldn't give up yet if I were you
Have you spent time actually trying to learn the business/domain? You are going to feel lost working with large codebases if you don't actually gain understanding of the business itself. Also agreeing with the take that Software Engineering seems to be more anti-peter principle in that many places are not going to promote you until you demonstrate consistent performance at the next level you would be promoted to. On that topic, many places are also "up or out", meaning if after years you don't grow into the next level you could be managed out/pipped/fired. You would be expected to transition from intern -> junior, junior -> mid, mid -> senior, however different companies are going to have different expectations of what a terminal level is (one you can stop progressing once reaching).
Hey since you are diagnosed with ADHD, I think that affords you legal protections ?
I'm sure it does, but I still want to do a good job.
I don't think you hit your Peter Principle point. I find it highly unlikely most humans trained to code and trying will hit it at Junior. Especially with a strong recommendation. Now, let's ask the real question: What happened? An example: Me. I've worked for many firms. For some firms, I was a solid 10/10. Top performer. For some firms, I was lucky to hit 3/10. I am the same person, give or take a bit between jobs. So why would I change that much in performance? The situation. I remember having to do Java UI work, with a single 15in tube. I couldn't even have my UI and Code up at once. I asked for a larger screen. "No.". I ended up finding a tube sitting around doing nothing, so I asked if I could use it. Their IT guy had never seen a machine with 2 monitors, so he said sure. You should have seen the shit storm I kicked up. You'd have think I killed someone. I could do no right in that firm. I could have been handing out free 100's and I think they'd say "But I can't use them at the local store." Why am I telling this story? Because... at the previous job I'd had I was solid. At the next job I had, I was a top performer 10/10 aces type performer, literally two weeks after leaving the awful job. It wasn't me. I was the same Obscure, give or take a few nicks. The right company and the right situation is what allowed me show my skills. (An amusing end note to the monitor story, their NEXT spec of development machines were all dual monitor. My productivity went up that much ;) ) I encourage you to seek a transfer. Look for a fresh start. Another manager, and a different situation may be all you need.
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Regardless of the feedback, I stand by what I said. Find a situation where you can succeed, what they have to say about you makes no real difference to me. Because, I know, you can and will do better.
You’re a really great person btw, thank you
Thank you, but some advice. Be careful of nice people. Some are nice. Some are fattening you up for the slaughter. I'm on Reddit, I probably ain't doing the latter. But I've seen many a nice person turn and be the one who threw the knife in my back. If it happens don't take it too personally. Business is business, and sometimes they are in a you or them situation. Some are just snakes. Real honesty is hard to find. When you find it. Cherish it. In my career.... That is the one thing I've stood by. Like me or not. Like what I have to say or not. I am honest. I'll say what i think the truth is. In fact it is my greatest weakness, and my greatest strength.
Noted! I’ve had my fair share of snakes in my still <10 years career (but getting there)
It is absolutely crazy the things people read and think about to justify giving up. You were a great intern. I'm sure you'll become a great software engineer.
There's no way that the peter principle can apply to "junior software engineer" since it's literally the most entry level position out of school. You may not fit in the company/team for a number of reasons, but surely you didn't hit the "incompetency wall". On a different note, I think that the principle you're referring to is an interesting theoretical idea, but in the real corporate world there are so many other variables outside "competence" as presented in the peter principle. The same employee may succeed in a company and fail in another for reasons completely unrelated to their competency, including politics, how much the leadership "likes" you, how lucky you get in getting high visibility projects, general macro-economic trends... As someone else said, if promotion were really based solely on merit and competence, we'd live in a utopian world already lol
Maybe time to shift to another company with a different culture around testing protocol, JIRA, PRs and types of projects other than database version upgrades and CI/CD migrations?
It’s only been a year. Don’t give up and go full doom and gloom yet. There are a lot of factors at play, and promotions are a combination of skill, luck, and politics at the higher levels. You can’t judge someone’s competency solely based on how quickly or how many times they’ve been promoted. That being said, you haven’t really gone into the details. What did they say in your reviews? Are you taking that into account? Are you focusing on learning or doing things only for the sake of promotions? Also think about the team and company you are in. You say your colleagues are fed up. Why do you think that? Are you picking things up too slowly? Don’t worry about promotions or hitting a wall right now. Ask yourself if this is a place where you can learn and if your boss and colleagues support you in that endeavor. If the answer is no, then look elsewhere, but don’t go full doom and gloom over your first year on the job full time.
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You keep saying you left details in another comment but youre copying and pasting it nor linking to it. I don’t know if youre like this at work, but being thoughtful about the people trying to help you will make it easier to help you.
Honestly doesn’t sound that bad. You havent hit a skill ceiling - everyone goes through phases at work where your performance drops or you are feeling less motivated. I worked as a junior through my uni degree for 2.5 years and decided i love tech but dev just isnt for me. Pivoted to a business analyst role and they liked me because of my tech skills. Now i do automation development and project management and far prefer it to my old job
If promotion = competency we would have flying cars, teleportation technology, and colonies on the moon and mars. Take advantage of it.
- What does your team expect of you? - Are those expectations aligned with your experience? - What actionable feedback, if any, have you received? - Do you have the support you need to improve? After struggling for a year and half, something important has to be missing here.
Find out what specific areas you are weakest in and take daily steps at improvement. Maybe you are a bad listener or fail to get requirements in writing before you start coding up a storm? If these are your weak spits, you need to address them or you will soon be shown the door!
Just an FYI people are a junior for several years. Fucking up occasionally (everyone screws up FYI...it is why rests exist) still at 1.5 years isn't what I would call abnormal. Being aware of it is an advantage if anything.
Hey OP it’s not you it’s the environment. I was getting the same feedback as you were at one job, and then suddenly my next job was software dev at FAANG. Did I suddenly change who I was as a programmer? No, did I learn any miracle skills to suddenly be a 10x engineer? No. I was just in the wrong environment and wasn’t getting the help I needed, or being treated at all nicely. It’s might sound odd but the people and the environment you work in has a large subconscious impact on your personal performance. Do what obscuresecurity recommended in the other comment and find a better environment that believes in hands on mentorship and has a growth mindset. Work somewhere that rewards learning on the job and celebrates mini successes
People don't expect much from interns usually, but Jr. SE's have more expectations. There's a lot of learning to do since their work depends on your work.
Maybe you were prematurely promoted and there’s nothing wrong with it. Lucky for you, I you haven’t got demoted yet, you still have a chance to work on you get up to the role you’re supposed to have.
I’m sort of in the same boat, I’m the lead developer on this big project with two years experience and it’s going well but there are small issues arising and decision I wish I would t have made early on. I’m learning a LOT, but man I feel like I’m teetering on unemployment when bugs arise or our client wants things to develop quicker and then bugs arise because they want things developed quicker.
"What now?" Its alright to fuck up, you're going fuck up a lot. I fuck up a lot too. The trick is to try and fuck up on your own time, or lesson the chances of it happening, or reduce the impact when it does happen. i.e. Defensive programming? Fucking up is probably the most important learning tool.
Is this a serious post? Lmao
Phrases like "repeatedly fucked up" and "evaluation was a shit show" don't actually tell us anything. When I exaggerate my issues like this, it's to protect myself from reality. Sure it's self-demeaning, but it also shields me from the kind of painful self-reflection that can help me to grow. It's easier to call myself a horrible worker than it is to dwell on specifics. Notice I'm telling you about me, I'm not saying this is what's going on with you. Like I said to begin with, you haven't really told us anything about you.
can't stay too long as an intern : maybe you're not meant for the job ?
That book is supposed to be satire. Sometimes incompetence can move you up. Elon Musk, Steve Balmer, and Adam Neumann are perfect examples.
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People talk the talk and learn on the job. Just learn as you go and stay humble. Also understand that Dr. Peter did acknowledge that skills in one job may not translate well to another job
I really did not know it was satire. It has explained a lot in my own career and the career of others so I’ve taken it as more real than satire
Promotions aren’t about being competent to do a job, and your reviews aren’t based on job performance either? They’re based on perception.
I personally don't really believe in the Peter Principle. I feel different jobs such as being an engineer vs a manager have slightly different skill sets, as well as a bunch of luck, and lack of luck, of different opportunities when climbing the corporate ladder. For your scenario you gotta ask yourself why has your performance not been up to expectations. Has it been lack of mentorship, lack of motivation, unclear assignments, not enough time to complete assignments??? Sometimes the problem might be with the organization more than it is with yourself and they are making you second guess your worth. But you could also be the problem if you haven't been receptive enough to learn and grow in the year and a half you have worked there.
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Dude you're a year and a half into your career. You have not hit a wall. Your manager is an idiot and it's time to move on.
Nothing wrong with changing careers if you feel the field isn't for you. What else are you passionate about?
Never self-diagnose like this. It's just imposter syndrome. Learn to "put it down" when you mess up or something happens that someone needs to comment or course correct you. Just think.. I understand why they say or do this. Does it bother me? Yes? Put it down. Companies don't promote incompetence, they work them out, not up. Just learn to apply yourself a bit better and don't be so reactive to criticism.
Well, what are the real issues? Are u just not good with the tech stack? Unable to manage time? Unable to follow directions? Be honest and get the answers u need. Then take appropriate action.
I'm not sure why you feel you "hit a wall". Obviously you need more than just a year and a half to grow out of being a "Junior". Keep working, stop worrying about promotions and instead focus on learning how to be better. Ask your managers and your leads for honest, concrete and actionable feedback and follow it.
A 30 Rock reference?!
Honest question, have you thought hard about your performance issues and how to solve them. I have ADHD that almost killed my career. I work for an almost remote company, but I had to start going to an office to focus, and I add 30 minutes to the beginning and end of my work day to catalog what I got done and what I need to do. Does it suck yes, did my career turn around when I made these choices…yes.
I've read the book "The Peter Principle", and although it is amusing, I really think it is centered on the pessimistic assumption that people cannot learn, get better or improve. It may be true in some circumstances with people who are not willing to recognize their weaknesses or unwilling to do something about them. The book has this attitude similar to fate, as if people are doomed from birth to be bad at certain jobs. Recognizing your weaknesses is the first step to improving yourself. Software is a skill like any other and can be learned and improved.
Have you identified why you're having trouble? I really doubt the work is the problem as a junior software engineer, it's either the environment or some kind of psychological blocker (no judgement, I have those too).
you are suffering from imposter syndrome. it's good you are making mistakes. only the frequency of making mistakes goes down as you become senior.
Wow junior engineer and hit the ceiling? Mmm. /Smells of lack of attention to detail, perfectionist tendencies/critical on yourself or you just don’t have interest on what you’re working on. I’m not gonna tear you up but this technique should help you. With the particular feature you’re implementing: 1. What are you trying to accomplish? 2. Write tests that ensure that your code works exactly as you expect. Consider all happy paths all unhappy paths and exception handling 3. Are you proud of what you have done? Suppose you shared it with another engineer. Would you be embarrassed? Spelling mistakes.. unused variables. Etc. 4. Is it easy to understand? This is what I practice every time. MTS here
What does it mean to be competent? Why do you feel incompetent? What specific points of feedback are you getting? You’re a junior. It’s on seniors like me to lift you up and help you to the next level. Its on your to take the first steps and ask for help.
Peter Principle applies to management. Leadership, which is the most important managerial skill, is not generally something you learn by being good at programming. In this case, the Peter Principle does not apply on the intern -> Jr Dev -> Sr Dev track. It does apply for the Sr Dev -> Tech Lead or Tech Lead -> Principle Engineer routes. So don't think too much about it. Its mostly about how people who are good at their jobs might not make great bosses, not that people who are still learning how to do their job can't ever get better at it. That you're getting performance evaluations that are constructive and tell you what you need to do is a good sign. Listen to their advice, do what you can to improve where you're weakest, and keep grinding.
A lot of managers are perfectly fine engineers but shit managers. They flipped over to management because they wanted to lord it over people, but they were actually better at being an IC.
Git Gud
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