First Week Jitters

Recently I started my new job at Foursquare as a Software Engineer. It was an exciting change for me after about 3.5 years being at Yello. The thrill started to wear off quickly though, after updating my LinkedIn, Facebook, and every other social network I realized that for the first time in 3.5 years I was going to be in a codebase that I had never seen before.

Instantly the fear set in. Was I actually ready to jump into the unknown? Should I have just stayed in my safety net with code I had written and was familiar with?

Well, I survived my first week, and then my second, and I hope by the time you read this a few more. I thought it would be a good idea to share what helped me.

Don’t Panic

The first time you get into the codebase is going to be scary. If this is your first developer position, you might get overwhelmed at how large the application seems. The thoughts of imposter syndrome might start to rise into the front of your head. You might hear some terms that you have never heard before.

For those of you who this isn’t your first job, you might experience a different panic like I did. Multiple times in my career I’ve stepped into a codebase that I haven’t written and instantly assumed it was horrible, beyond repair, and that I could never be happy working with that.

This happened at Yello for me and again at Foursquare, but the key to me was to just step back and breath.

Everything will be okay

I say that not just to say it, but as someone who ended up spending over three years in that codebase that could not be saved. I had just been a junior developer when starting and the entire codebase scared me but it all came out okay.

Ask Questions

I think the biggest problem with some people when starting a new job is they don’t want to ask a million questions. If you have a fear of asking questions to your coworkers you might want to take a look at your company culture and see if you think you’ll be a good fit.

Luckily at Foursquare I was able to get out of my head and ask as many questions as possible. So much so, on day 3 I started to panic I might be talking too much.

sorry for all the comments, just want to make sure i understand everything and there was quite a bit there ha
- Slack message

Asking questions, no mater what your skill level, is the best way to start a new job. When I was team lead I loved working with all the new developers on my team. I wanted to make sure that they felt as comfortable as they could in the codebase so if they needed to know anything I tried to be there for them.

Think about it this way, if you were a manager would you rather have your new developer get up PRs quickly or have them sit around trying to figure out things on their own?

Questions are good because it gives everyone a learning opportunity. As the new person on the team, you can learn a lot about the architecture and why decisions were made. The tech lead gets out of this the potential to revisit items and allow their new developer to provide insights that might not have been thought of by the team beforehand.

Breathe

On my first day at my previous job I left my first day ready to quit, called my girlfriend and told her I hated it, and told my parents when they called I didn’t want to talk about my day. This attitude led to my first few months to be miserable which was just a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wanted to be unhappy because everything was new, unfamiliar, and as a junior I thought I was in way over my head.

Things there ended up working out so when I had my first day at Foursquare I simply told everyone “I’m just going to sit back and wait a bit before I tell you how much I like it”. I slowed down, I asked a million and a half questions about the architecture, and in just a few weeks I can easily say I came home all smiles.

Starting a new job can be super stressful, but wether you are a senior or a junior developer, it is key to take a step back, relax, and take the opportunity to learn from new people on a brand new project.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” — Steve Jobs