So I have officially done what I set out to do – I have become a professional software developer. I started work this Wednesday at a small start up in the city. The company has about 15 employees as of now, and is located on half of a floor that is being rented out by a design company with too much space. It has a decidedly modern feel. The walls, furniture, and fixtures are all white and cyan and frosted glass. Everyone sits together at a large white table, and the wall is lined with a few standing desks that I occasionally take advantage of. The kitchen, I am told, once was stocked with snacks, but, tragically, this is no longer the case. Still, there is a Keurig machine and a nice assortment of Tazo teas, so it’s hard to complain.
There wasn’t much of an onboarding procedure. They bought me breakfast on my first day, and everyone stood around and introduced themselves to me. I received my new macbook pro, 15 inches, space gray. Within an hour, I was working on my first assignment, which was to add my name and picture to the company website. After that, I was given my second assignment, which was to build out an actual feature for the website.
I started to get fatigued pretty quickly. When I was a student at Grace Hopper, I got used to focusing on code all day long, but I slipped up a little during the fellowship when I didn’t have urgent projects to work on every day. So my first full day of coding took a lot out of me. I managed to get the feature working by the end of the day, but as soon as I got on the train home I immediately realized several things that were missing from my work. I spent, essentially, the next two days refactoring and polishing the feature. I also wrote tests for it and did some bug fixes throughout the site.
I have been working closely with another female developer, which is great. She has worked extensively on website that I am working on, and has been a very good resource as I am getting started. I have mostly been using React, which I feel comfortable with, but we also use some new libraries that take some getting used to, so it’s good to be able to turn to the person next to me and ask a question when I need to.
The company I work at does a lot to be transparent, so I have also been attending meetings that are not at all technical in nature. It is a glimpse into a world that, up until now, I knew little to nothing about. Perhaps, within a few months, I’ll be able to say more about the process of startup funding, or the politics of telemedicine. For now though I’m just absorbing all that I can.
Galen E. Corey 