10 things I wish I knew before my first corporate software engineer job
The twenties are the wild years of your life. Living your best time and getting out of university into professional life. In case you are fortunate enough and have already figured out what you want to do in your life. You are good!!!
Else, you are still figuring out where you fit best, what interests you the most, getting rid of student loans, figuring out ways to make money fast, becoming financially independent, developing assets. All these dreams and plans and hope that we will sustain. You get into corporate and see the different sides of the business.
Starting with you
Getting into a corporate? Starting your professional life, friend! A place where things aren’t fair, people are mean, the boss has to like you to get the bonus. No matter how sound you are technically your coursework never prepares you to climb up the corporate ladder.
Getting into the Unknown what to expect
Politics
Usually, fresh graduates get allocated random projects, a few get good others to end up in a swamp. And trust me it is difficult to move out of a project with different technology. Sometimes seniors can take the “good” part of a work and assign you a repetitive task.
If you have watched Game of Thrones |House of Card's office politics is the same. People, playing games to get personal gains, power, promotion, or getting work they love without thinking about others.
Be vigilant and smart to understand it. Don’t expect anything from anyone.
Firing Downsizing
Get yourself mentally ready. The job market is ruthless firing and downsizing are common. Companies lay off employees from time to time after accessing, whether they will bring any goods for the company profits or not. Seeing people get fired now and then won’t be a new thing for you.
People skills
Corporates are huge!!! You will be interacting with a lot of people more than you think. You need to learn how to speak to different types of people to encourage their initiatives. There can be times when you have a hard time getting your voice heard. However, Helping people will make your network. Making a lot of good connections is very important.
Organization culture
You read in a lot of places, “Every place has its own culture”. Do some research know that it syncs with your morals and values?
You will be living and breathing in this culture for a considerable amount of time. Mental health comes first in any case.
Boring
In case you find yourself bored with your daily routine. Don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with you. You entered the rat race of making a living. The workflow is already defined. You won’t be able to bring any change to it. It sucks sometimes!!!
Surviving the corporate
Here are few tips that I have learned to adapt over time.
Knowledge is infinite learning is infinite but life is finite do what you love!!!
1. Make sure there are senior Developer in your team
Software development is hard and making good software takes time and past experience. Development cannot be done by a single person with a laptop, not in the corporate world at least. Good software needs feedback, collaboration, and backing up.
Before joining a big MNC, if you are not sure which division and project you will be joining don’t ask someone about the company. It’s like asking someone who lives in the UK about properties in Finland thinking that they both live in Europe! MNCs are huge. Making assumptions and creating pictures on your brain by listening to someone’s description is not something I would suggest.
2. Ask about project past, present, and future
How is the team going to evolve in time? Are you planning to expand the research effort? How much are you investing in training? These require context obviously, but they might contour the effort and resources they are actually putting in the team, besides the boring corporate slogans, focusing on customers.
3. Learning business aspect
Technology is something that can be self-learned. Other skills like client interaction, situation handling, team management can only be learned when you are out on a good project.
Expose yourself to the business aspect, not only technology — It’s essential to learn the business aspect of a project and not just the technical part. It makes you more involved. The things that you take from here will help you in the latter part of your career.
4. Patience
Any advice that I would give to my old self is to be patient. Don’t push yourself too hard. The most important thing that development teaches us is patience. Understanding development takes time, error solving takes time. Things just don’t happen on the brink of an eye. You need to clear your head to solve a problem so as not to create more.
5. Understand the culture
No matter how much you research on the culture, you will still be facing issues adjusting. But organizational culture should sync with your morals and values. If they don’t sync it will be difficult for you to remain focused.
You can judge a company’s culture when you first time meets your employer.
It’s just like that you are choosing your life partner every person have some good or bad qualities and you have to decide can you live with that. Think before you choose any organization. After that, you have to own their steps.
6. Personal and Professional Growth
Your company loyalty directly links with your performance or perception. Working on personal and professional growth is the key. Find a way where both are thriving.
Making life more disciplined, finding like-minded people, finding a mentor, working on emotional intelligence. All of these will take you to places you never thought of before.
7. Network
Don’t build a wall around yourself. The more people you interact with, the more you learn. In a corporate world, clarity of vision, commitment, ambition, creativity, and innovation can help you excel. But networking, leveraging influence are equally important. Usually, fresh graduates from university lack this and find it hard to learn. Some of them find an easy way by office politics.
8. Adaptability
In software, development tech changes very rapidly. Frameworks libraries get to build every month. Go for exposure learn to adapt and know when to let go of people and tech stack that you might like.
9. Small things matter
You can make things better by making small changes around yourself. Try to Inspire, lead, and drive the process. Manage risk, without letting fear of failure kill innovation. Convince others to work outside their comfort zone. Stay open to new ideas!!!
10. Learn to say No
Learn to speak up and say no. Always saying yes is not the solution. Learn to speak up if you need help, training, guidance. Learn to listen to your intuition and gut feeling. If something feels wrong, if you have the slightest feeling that you and the team are not doing everything you can to deliver valuable products, then stop and think honestly for a second. Did you do everything in your power to create a high-quality product, service? There is no shame in admitting that you are wrong and it’s always better to stop early on.
Conclusion
A day will come when your dream becomes a reality. Being yourself, optimistic, and taking every opportunity that comes your way. Maintain a positive attitude as everyone is unique and different. With love, courage and imagination comes the best. You should not set some expectations very high about the work- more often than not, you will get disappointed.
Making life more disciplined- Others may say it’s monotonous, but I am considering the glass as half-filled!
