hey friends welcome back to my channel i am so excited to be doing this video today
because it is something that i wish i had when i was starting my first job
as a software developer which is what to expect your first day as a software developer
before we get into it though make sure to hit that subscribe button for more tech and coding related
content shout out to some of these subscribers here thank you for all your love and support
okay let's get started you've been through the interviews you've been through the studying the
late nights the early mornings probably some tears were shed working towards landing your first job
as a software developer and congrats here you are you are landed you landed your first job as
a software developer now comes the next part what do you expect your first day on the job
as a software developer the nerves from this can be terrifying can feel overwhelming and equally
as stressful as it felt when you were looking for the job and although it varies based company to
company and the size of company i want to share with you what to really expect on their first day
and i'm going to be talking not only from my experience but i also spoke to
a ton of other friends who are developers about what their experience was like too
so when i share this with you it can be accurate as to what exactly to expect on that first day
the first question i often get asked about what to expect on your first day of starting your job is
what do i wear this is something no matter who you are i think crosses our mind especially in tech it
can be tricky because on one hand tech can be very casual t-shirts and jeans on the other though do
you want how casual do you want to go especially on your first day here's my best advice if you are
starting at a company that is i would say medium to large it doesn't hurt to just directly ask
whether this be the hr person the hiring manager whoever has been your contact throughout the
hiring process just ask what is appropriate to wear if you are starting at a startup i wouldn't
necessarily even feel the need to ask i would more so go along of what they wore to the interview
so if your interviewer was in a t-shirt and jeans maybe don't go that casual your first day but you
also don't need to show up in a tuxedo and i think this thing can go from medium to large however
from my experience medium to large size companies it's always easier just to ask as well they have
people there put in place to help you and support you leading up to your first day the next question
i always get asked is well what do i bring and if the company is not supplying your computer
bring your computer and do not forget do not forget your charger at home on your first day
and obviously bring a lunch a water bottle the basics a pen a piece of paper or a notebook
anything really that you could see yourself using throughout the day but especially on the
first day it's better to be over prepared than underprepared the first day at many companies
is really just setting up i know it's very anti-climactic because you're all excited
and you have the nerves running through you get there and your morning is spent usually just
setting up software so you get to the office you get introduced to all your new colleagues
get where you or get shown to where you are going to be seated set up your desk and by this time
it's already mid-morning a lot of times you will have either onboarding documents to go through
or someone sitting next to you to go through them depending on the size of the company
these onboarding documents will usually entail different softwares that you should download
if you have to download a specific vpn a code editor any of the above doing all this
is expected to take you typically throughout your entire morning to bring you to about lunch
at lunch time don't worry there's a very very small chance you will be eating alone
a lot of tech companies always ensure that if someone new started you will be going out for
lunch or all eating together as a team this is a great way to get to know more of your team members
in a more non-formal setting in the afternoon it will pretty much be the same as the morning where
it's just setting up i know this is really not that exciting but your first day they're really
going to schedule is you're not going to be starting to code on your first day you're not
going to be picking up tickets your first day maybe you will be if it's a very small startup
but even for startups that is not something you typically would do if you do finish your setup
though and have a little bit of free time what usually is asked of you is to start looking at prs
looking at other people's code that is waiting for review this is a great way to get familiar with
the code base and also to how other people are coding and what kind of parts of the code base is
currently being worked on a lot of times at medium to large size companies what they will do on your
first day or first week is have kind of a session where they'll go through the code base with you
this is so valuable and what it really does is they go through the entire code base with you not
line for line or document by document but really ensuring you understand how it is structured out
the different technologies they use what you need to install if you haven't installed some certain
things and really breaking down everything for you as to where to look for this things
even like how to name your commits what their structure is like all of that and don't worry
it's going to be a lot of information and you are going to forget probably most of it and that's
where it comes in that it's very important to have a clear understanding right from day one as to
whom to ask questions to make sure it is clear to you the person who is if it's your manager you're
supposed to be asking questions to or if it's a bigger company maybe it's the dev lead but make
sure that's clear to you and if it isn't it's okay to ask one of the biggest pieces of advice i can
say when you are starting your first few days or first few weeks even at the tech company is to ask
as many questions as possible that is expected of you that is encouraged of you if they are a
good company and you want to really take that time to soak it all up okay so you're probably asking
tiffany when do i start getting to code when will i get my first ticket and what will that be like
depends on the company in my experience one company i worked at it was a few days in
about two or three days in at a larger company it can be up to waiting till the next sprint
it really depends but it's not going to be the first one or two days typically
the first ticket that you pick up what it will entail is a it'll be very very small
if you are someone who is junior or even more mid-tier they're not going to give you this
crazy feature to work on most of the time it will be actually a defect that you are working on
so some small bug in the code that needs to be fixed this might be as small as change the
color on a button change the text on screen and you'll look at the stick and think this is so easy
but it will take you a bit longer than normal because you're still working your way through
the code base and learning about where everything is there's going to be a lot of smaller tickets
leading up to a big feature ticket feature meaning it's going to be you're building something
completely from scratch within the project they're not just going to throw you in over the deep end
and this is really important to highlight because i know for myself when i started at the company
at every company i worked at i always have these weird expectations that the first week i'm going
to get these crazy difficult tickets when in reality if it's a good company they're not just
going to throw you right in and i really want to state that and really remind you of that because i
think a lot of times we work up these scenarios in our minds that it's going to be this big
terrifying scary ticket and most of the time it will not so rest assured you will get to ease
into the process my biggest pieces of advice for your first few days is to talk to as many
people as possible not just the technical people talk to everyone on your team get to know them
because there will be times when you need their help and they need yours it's gonna be way less
awkward if you just introduced yourself right out of the gate another piece of advice i have which
i already touched on is ask as many questions as possible be a sponge soak it all up and don't be
afraid that if you forgot something someone told you or can't recall just ask again and just be
honest that you know i've been getting a lot of awesome information i can't really recall what
is the process for this or protocol also there's never a time in my opinion where it's too early to
ask why things are done a certain way maybe you know you think well why why do we do this this
way or why does this work this way those are great questions to ask as well and don't be afraid to
kind of step out and just ask what is on your mind lastly do not expect perfection you are going to
mess up there are going to be a lot of fails and there are going to be days where you feel like why
did they hire me and i want to remind you that is totally normal and we've all been there and felt
that way they hired you for a reason you are there for a reason just remember that take a step back
and breathe on those moments that get overwhelming and you will soar with the company and do amazing
i hope this gives you more insight as to what a day your first day is like as a software
developer honestly it's not that exciting and that is a good thing meaning you're easing into
it so really take that and rest assured it's not going to be this big scary day
that will come as you continue working on the tickets and getting better and better
thank you all for watching this video make sure to hit that subscribe button for more
tech and coding related videos and i will see you all soon thanks everyone