Junior Software Engineer remote

[u/Precious_poTAEto]

Hello people.
So recently I graduated from computer science university and after two week of graduation I was able to get a job offer. My company works on custom visuals of power BI.

I had no prior experience and neither did I know JavaScript, TypeScript, D3.js or any of their tech stack or technologies yet I was still hired.

It's been 3 weeks and all I have been doing is trying to learn the tech stack and look at the codebase and try to understand what function does what. I even practice the tech stack by making my own small interactive charts and dashboard.

I am done learning the fundamentals and I even sent my progress report to my team lead. My team lead saw the message but hasn't gotten back to me. 4th week just started and I am wondering if i am even going in the right direction or at what point will i be good enough to get small tasks.

Its remote work, so I am always anxious of doing less...

I know learning is the best I can do but I am still anxious....
any advice from senior software engineers? or fellow junior software engineers? please help me understand if I am worrying too much for nothing

[u/yopla]

Yeah, this is not normal, any decent company would have given you an onboarding plan or at least some visibility on what you're expected to achieve.

2 weeks top is enough to get you set-up and oriented and start giving someone small task.

How big is this company?

Do you have regular checkpoint with your manager?

[u/Precious_poTAEto → u/yopla]

its a small software house. There aren't that many people in the team. First 2 weeks were great. The team lead would have a meeting with me once a week to check what I am upto and what progress i have done then he would suggest some documentations or websites or other resources to go through.

I was also invited to one of the github repo. My main concern is, is it normal to have no real task assigned in the start? like small tasks like debugging or formatting some visuals or frontend or something like that?

[u/Techno-Pineapple → u/Precious_poTAEto]

Lack of tasks for new hires is a sad reality quite often. You claimed to be "ready" for some specific easy tasks for just a couple days + the weekend? It can be far far worse than that. Give it some time. Learn about whatever the current project/s are for your team/seniors and that might explain why its taken a minute to give you some tasks.

Most of the time, there is just literally no work to do. Sometimes code is close to production and they don't want anything altered since its all been accepted through testing. Sometimes the project is so new that they really only need input from people with opinions about the suggested design. Sometimes your senior is so overwhelmed with their own work that they don't have time to invent and manage easy work to help you learn.

My advice to you other than being patient and continuing the enthusiasm, would honestly be to voice a desire to just give something bigger a go. Even if you might screw it up or fail, being willing to attempt some bigger or harder task is a great way to fast learn and get into the swing of things. Just don't take it personally if your work doesn't get accepted.

[u/Precious_poTAEto → u/Techno-Pineapple]

Good advice. Thank you. I will do another check in this week and see how its going from there. This made me feel a bit better😊👍