I have found while I really enjoy programming full time. It has also brought on some anxiety I was not expecting. I had been up until July a full time IT administrator for a little over 5 years. In this job while still learning a lot the majority of what I did on a day to day basis was memorized and required little to no effort.
It has been string moving into a job that while I still knew enough that after a trial run with the company they still wanted to hire me. I find my self outside my knowledge sphere on a daily basis. I love this as I’m currently learning so much. I have a few blog post / videos on the way about what I’ve learned in ActionMailer and Google Client API for Ruby as a result of what all I have been learning.
However, its still an odd place to be in where everyday you don’t feel like you know enough because you are learning so much and reading a lot of documents. I did feel a bit better after talking to my boss and he mentioned I had been doing great work on getting a feature implemented. As well, while listening to the Talk Python to Me podcast. They had mentioned that even after being on the job for 3 months in most projects you still would be new and not know good portions of the code base.
Main thing I’m trying to get at for new developers (like me) is, it’s okay. Its a new job and I’m sure you are doing a great job. Even if you feel like you should have caught that typo 30 minutes ago and want to pull your hair out. As long as your learning from all the ups and downs you’ll be okay.
As well you might not be in the same boat as me. I am working my first job remotely so I don’t have day to day interaction with developers and 60%-70% of my communication is done via text, with me on a timezone difference of 3–6 hours depending on who I need to talk to.
I’ll end on this note though, I’m so happy to be in a position that I am learning everyday, doing what I love. I wouldn’t trade it for any other line of work.
As always thanks for reading, and follow me on twitter for more daily updates, live stream alerts, and post on my journey from Senior IT Admin to Junior Developer. Subscribe to the Program Practical channel on YouTube. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments below, and don’t forget it’s always a good time to start to #LearnToCode