Fresh out of school, excited to have finally secured a job. My excitement levels are through the roof. Not to mention, I was very relieved as the application process was difficult. My first job in software engineering was one of the most rewarding experiences in my career. This was the foundation of my software expertise and I built many long lasting friendships with colleagues.

What really is a junior engineer? Well think Entry Level. You know nothing. You're probably really bad at doing a lot of technical development. You just need to learn and absorb at this point. You thought you were hot stuff being a senior in college? Now you're back at the bottom.

Applying for a job in software

I can't begin to describe the flurry of emotions that I felt as I searched for jobs. Nearing graduation, I was already stressed enough that I didn't participate in an internship program during my undergrad. What was stressful about it is that many companies place a high importance on having internship experience. I remember speaking to a DoorDash recruiter at a career fair and the recruiter's demeanor totally changed after learning that I didn't have an internship - wasn't looking at my resume anymore, not taking notes, general behavior of not wanting to be in the conversation anymore. It really hurt. You'd think that coming from a top-tier university like Berkeley is enough, but that's only part of the battle. I tried for an internship for my summer at Berkeley but it didn't work out. I ended up mostly working to pay the bills and not deplete savings too much. My next summer, I took coursework. To get noticed by companies, I needed to fix my resume and really highlight everything I was doing on and off campus.

Typically there's a recruiter who asks screening questions. Probably trying to gauge some general interest in the company and role. At this level, most of the interviews you receive are technical. Just a bunch of coding questions, and some can be very brutal. There's usually at least one behavioral interview to see if you're a culture fit, and then the final interview is a screening by the hiring manager.

What was it like?

Liberating. I felt on top of the world despite knowing almost nothing about software development. I knew that at this level, it's okay to know nothing since most learning will be through on-the-job experience. And boy, at first, everything is terribly confusing. At best, I knew a few programming languages. At work, there's the Software Development Lifecycle, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, deployment, Agile Methodologies. So overwhelming at first. I was a junior dev for about a year for reference, and most of that time was leveling up my skills on all of the aforementioned things at work. Now, I was getting better at these things but a big problem I had was moving too fast. I wanted to keep up with my fellow colleagues who were leagues ahead of me in their careers, but I figured I had the capability to move up quick. Part of the time, I did well and left a good impression. Part of the time, I needed to make corrections, fix my problems. I can't say that I introduced any critical problems, but I couldn't say that I didn't release problematic code here and there. Slowing down was a concept that took me years to figure out (will be touched on more in later posts).

Leisure Time

I started as a junior dev at a startup. Not early stage, but still fighting for funding periodically. This was pre-pandemic so business was pretty stable. My coworkers were some of the most easy-going and fun people that I've ever worked with. From time to time, we'd take random walks during the day in order to unplug. Usually we'd go out for lunch and bring it back to the office to eat with the others and chat; this was so expensive in the long run though, but totally worth it. I remember this one coworker who'd take naps during the day, right next to the CEO. It felt like an early stage startup. We felt invincible.

Final Thoughts

It was a dream. Relaxing work space, fun coworkers, and absorbing as much information that I could about development and the business. I'd say it was great introduction to my technical career. I can't imagine starting at any other company.