80. 2 Months In and I...
...still have that fire! Software engineering is still pleasurable for me, despite being SUCH a n00b. I was stuck on a ticket for a MONTH...MUCH longer than me and everyone else on the ticket wanted to spend on it, but I did not want to give up. For about 4 weeks I did not accomplish other tickets, and that made me a bit insecure, but I was determined to finish. I was learning a lot from it and did not want to stop it.
The ticket was supposed to be simple: adding an icon to users who were victim of fraud. This was easier to accomplish for one subset of people. When my mentor and I thought were done with the ticket, we submitted it. I was very suspicious because I could not test well if my tool had worked or not, but took my mentor’s word that the ticket was completed. I released control, figured he knew more than me and did not push back. I submitted it and of course, it was lacking tagging the other group of users. That taught me to follow up on any suspicions I have, regardless if someone above me stamps it as done. If my name is going on it, I need to check every corner and follow every suspicion.
We spent weeks together, but I did not lose my patience. We accomplished the task eventually, after weeks of collaborating with other teams, making cascading calls to a service, experimenting with timeouts, gevents, EnvoyClient, logging, and VIM. I feel like I learned a lot. One thing I did after this ticket was complete was go back and explain why every line of code did what it was doing, because I was not following well as my mentor did a lot of the typing on the project. I think his idea was that we would go faster if he typed and I reviewed the changes after and ask questions, but I did not like this style. Again, I took the backseat and thought, “well maybe I should deal with not having control in this situation and follow his word.” When I saw that I was suffering, I would demand that he guide me. He did that for about a second and would go back to leading on his computer. This frustrated me a bit and I asked a few more times if I could lead. I thought, “Well maybe he doesn’t understand me,” and got more firm and explicit and said, “No, I mean, can you not type on your computer and can you guide me and have us only make changes on my computer.” He did so for a while and reverted back. We did eventually get it done, I learned a lot on the ticket and took notes for next time: be more assertive and maybe ask that he close his laptop completely. He wants to improve his communication, and him leading and not typing maybe something he struggles with.
I was able to move forward with another ticket and was happy to do so, because my manager was becoming a bit concerned. He trusted that I was getting a good experience while on it, but I started to feel that pressure of imposter syndrome and did not want him to regret thinking highly of me. It was a challenge to keep my head in it and focus, but I am glad I stuck to it and finished it. On the ticket I completed after the nightmare one, I relied on my manager more. His method is to totally let me drive and I like that. He is patient. He is so much better than my mentors in my first role at this company. In my first role, they were saying that I was moving too slow with learning and they had hoped that I was further along. I thought this was extremely unfair because it seemed as if they were removing all the responsibility from the person who was teaching me at the time who didn’t want to teach, was not getting paid to do so, had already salty feelings about his position in the company, would never greet me despite sitting RIGHT next to me, and would say things like, “I don’t understand why you are not getting this.” I had really low security on that team. It is so refreshing to not get that from my manager. Just to make sure my manager was not holding this in, I asked him on Slack, “Are my questions/understanding of this at a level that you expected?” His response was that I was on track and that he would have to improve communicating more explicitly. This was night and day from my previous experiences learning at a company and I appreciated it so much. It made me more secure with my feelings that he was a great manager. He immediately discussed ways HE could improve instead of putting my misunderstandings all on me.
A second to elaborate on my manager: he’s dope. I was worried, because everyone said he was great, and that made me suspicious, because they also said this about my previous manager. I have not had the best experiences with managers. I have had some great and some not-so-great ones, but he is surely the best I have had so far. He listens, he’s into similar things I am into but doe not treat me like a monolith and only talk about rap music or Black people he respects (*eye roll*), he supports me, visibly fights/advocates for me, has my growth at heart and does the same for all the members of my team, never discusses my performance in relationship to my teammates, and is more awkward and weird than I am :). In a meeting I held once that he supported me in, I would ask questions and the other engineers would answer them by looking at my manager. I never brought it up, because I am so used to that happening and almost have to push it to the back of my brain to maintain my sanity in the workplace. Also, I know previous managers would have been like, “it’s all in your head,” or , “you’ll become the expert one day,” and not develop steps with me to overcome this and demand that respect from my colleagues in future meetings. My manager this time around brought it up on his own. He noticed it and asked what he would like me to do in the future. This showed me that he knows all about the unconscious biases people have, even colleagues he has worked with and built relationships with longer than me, and was willing to sacrifice his comfort to make sure I got the respect I deserved. I did not have an answer for him at the moment but thanked him for recognizing that and mentioning it.
A job is a blessing. A job I want to do with a great manager shows me I have favor.
