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181 How Do I Start My Job Well? What Do I do First? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: How do I start my new job well?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: What do I do first?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's a great question we're going to answer in today's episode of DevQuestions.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're not familiar, this is a podcast dedicated to answering the questions that developers and aspiring developers have that might not be answered with just code.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of questions about how do you be a developer that revolve around more than just writing good code.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why we have the DevQuestions podcast.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now, in this episode, a person asked from a suggestion site, suggestions.imtimcore.com.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: They asked the question, how do I start my job well when I'm just getting started?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: And what we're going to do in this episode is concentrate on the first 90 days.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: What can you do to impact your role in the first 90 days?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because in 90 days, it's three months' time.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of jobs will do a three-month review where they say, hey, are you fitting in?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Are you working out?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they even have some type of temporary period where you might not be fully in, you might not really have the job until after the first 90 days, kind of like a grace period or a trial period or something like that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're going to concentrate on those 90 days and making sure you hit the ground running, make a great impression, and really fit in well at your new role.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: So the first thing to start off with is a knowledge of why are you here?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Your job is to help your boss accomplish their job.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: You might say, no, no, no, Tim, I was hired to be a software developer.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what's your boss's job?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: To get that software built.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: So your company gave your boss a number of resources, people that it's a horrible term for people, but people to get the job accomplished.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: So when your boss's boss talks to your boss, they don't really care about, you know, how well you're writing the code or what specific code you're writing.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Your boss's boss cares about did you get these features implemented?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Are these bugs fixed?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: Are these new things coming down the road?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that's your boss's job.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Your boss's job is to accomplish some mission.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: And your job as a subordinate to your boss is to help them accomplish their job.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: So when you look at it from that perspective, when you look at it as my job is to help my boss accomplish their job, well, that can change some things in your mindset.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because you go from, I'm just doing my thing, I'm, you know, I was hired to do this, I'm going to do this, to maybe you shift how you do your job in order to better help your boss.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: And you might say, well, that's not my job.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it absolutely is your job because if your boss isn't happy with you, what happens to you?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: You might go away.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: You might get the first layoff in the round of layoffs, or you might just get fired.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: So your job is to make sure that you do your best in your role so that you can advance the company, so that you can have a better time at your job, and so that you can have a great stepping stone to your next job potentially.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about the things you can do in the first 90 days to really help accomplish this mission.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one, when you first walk in day one, the fire hose starts.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna learn a lot of new information.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: You'll learn people's names, you'll learn people's titles and positions, you'll learn people's kind of role in a team, you'll learn about maybe the healthcare system and what benefits there are at the job, and how you clock in and clock out if you have that, and all these things around starting a job.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Then you'll probably get access to your workstation.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you're a developer, you get some kind of computer and maybe some monitors and some software to install, and then you'll start getting the source code for the company or the um the application you're working on.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: You'll get that source code and get it downloaded and get it installed and learn the process for committing code and all the rest of the stuff that starts right away, day one, day two, day three of your new job.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, here's what's gonna happen.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna walk into this job, you're gonna get overwhelmed, and you're gonna go, okay, okay, okay, and you're gonna forget 90% of it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And you only remember people's names sometimes, and that's okay.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: It happens.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm horrible at names.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: But here's a trick.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Write down what you learn and stop.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: What you just did, a lot of you, is you go, yeah, I'm fine.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I got it.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: No, I don't care if you have a practically perfect memory.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: Write it down.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: Take notes.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Learn who people are, what they do, learn how to set up your new workstation for the first time.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: Document all of that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: There's a reason for this.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, when you forget 90%, you still have it written down.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: You can refer back to those notes and refresh your brain.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: But also, you're gonna start building an on-board documentation.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna get to that in a couple of points.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: But for now, you have notes that will help you not have to ask the same question over again.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, number two, I want you to ask questions.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: I want you to ask questions for everything you don't know.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: If something isn't obvious, ask the question about it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Try to get more information.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: Try to be annoying, but at the same time, ask the questions.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: But here's a really good key for asking questions.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: Ask it once, write down what you learn.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: See, back to point one.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: Keep recording what you've learned because, okay, your boss walks you in day one, says, here's Bob, here's Sue, here's Mary.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, write that down.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then when you go, oh wait, who was that second person?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Look at your notes and go, Sue.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of going to Mary and saying, Hey, what's her name?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: By having it just written down, you can forget it and come back to it and go, oh, Mary, and then say, Hey, Mary, I've got a question.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: Mary feels like you were actually paying attention to her because you were, you took the time to write it down and you didn't have to ask Mary her name because you asked the documentation that you wrote.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so the documentation doesn't care how many times you look at it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: But people do care if you ask their name five, six, seven, eight times.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: If you ask the same question over and over and over again, that's frustrating.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you ask the question once, or maybe twice, but you ask it once, you write down the information, maybe you come back for clarification later and say, hey, you said that these are the steps, but did I miss one here?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't work the way I expected it to.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: And they go, oh, you missed step five.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: Not a problem.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: You write it down, go, I'm sorry, write down your notes.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now you can you ask twice, but they know that you're paying attention.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: They know that you're working on not asking them over and over again the same questions, and they know you're being diligent about what you're doing.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: So you can leave a great impression just by taking notes.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one, write down what you learn.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, ask questions, but then see number one.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: Number three, create onboarding documentation.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: Onboarding new employees is hard.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: And quite frankly, as a boss, you typically don't have the time to create great documentation for the next person because you're always in a hurry, right?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: So let's say your boss has 10 developers underneath them and they want to hire the 11th, you.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they hire you, and but why?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Why did your boss hire you?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Why does your boss need an 11th employee?
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's too much work and not enough people to do the work.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: So your boss's goal isn't to spend lots of time getting up to speed.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Remember, what's your job to help your boss accomplish their job?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: What's their job?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: To get that software built.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: So your goal is to get you in and building software so that you can reduce the overall load on the department so that more work can be done.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the way to do that is to get you in the job fast.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that often doesn't include your boss sitting down and saying, okay, now you have to get the speed.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: Let's document everything we did so that the next person that comes on board is easier.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: That usually doesn't happen.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or if it does happen, it's it happened six employees ago and three software versions ago.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: So create onboarding documentation.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: If you were given documentation, great.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Start from there, take notes, figure out what needs to be updated.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Handing your boss new documentation is huge.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Say, hey boss, I've gone through, you know, it's 30 days in, I've I kind of got up a speed here, and I found that either there was no documentation, so I wrote some, or the documentation was was missing some things.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I add those in.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Can you look at this, make sure I got it right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: But then, you know, you can have this so the next time you hire a person, the 12th person, it's easier.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because what are you doing now?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: You're making it so the next time your boss hires a person, they have to spend less time getting that person up to speed.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: That person is in and doing their work faster and more accurately, which means that they accomplished their goal faster, which means your boss accomplishes their goal faster.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: So onboarding documentation is huge.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: So just say, hey, here's kind of a nice bonus.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: You invested all this time into me.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote my notes and turned it into documentation that can help the next person.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: And by extension, help you.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Number four, this is one I see a lot with people who are newly hired on a team, especially young developers, as in you're a junior developer, you haven't done this before very many times.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: Follow their lead.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, you may come in and you may have gone to school or a boot camp or you've done lots of training online and you've maybe even worked somewhere else before and you know there's a better way of doing this.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: Don't introduce that day one or day 10.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Wait.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: Learn their process, follow their lead.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: When there is a style that everybody does in the department, don't just change it.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: For example, we used to name all tables in SQL Server TBL and the name.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: That naming convention has gone out of the way.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh away from, we've gone away from that naming convention.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: That was Hungarian notation.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: We don't use that for tables anymore.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, some businesses may still.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: So when you create a new table in SQL Server, name it TBL and the name.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Do not try to change it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Follow their lead first.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now, eventually, after you have experience in the department, you can start talking about the most important thing that you think might be changed to improve processes.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not everything, the most important thing, and go from there.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: But when a person first walks in, they don't understand the history.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: They don't understand why choices were made the way they were.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're still using TBL because if you don't, then this automated system over here that knows that tables start with TBL won't see as a table.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you broke a whole system because you didn't understand the reasoning behind the naming.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Or you didn't understand the reason behind using a certain system or a certain process a certain way.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So start by following their lead.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Don't try to come in and just be the know-it-all that knows that they're doing everything wrong.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: No one likes to be told they're doing it wrong.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm sure you don't.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: So why would you want to make a good impression by telling people something they don't want to hear?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: At the very least, you're making them uncomfortable.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: I have worked for many organizations.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: I can count on one hand the number of organizations that were happy that I came in and said, we need to change these things.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because, yes, on one hand, they want the efficiency, but on the other hand, you don't know the history.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know the backstory.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know this and that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: And even if you're right and they're wrong, you need to build up some credibility first.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: So follow their lead to start.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Number five, build interpersonal relationships.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: This does not mean you have to hang out with your coworkers all the time.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: Be friendly.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: Hang out a little bit, spend time in the lunchroom or the break room, or you know what, chat about things other than work.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or if you can, find things to do outside of work that might be, you know, able to help you build relationships on that team.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to be, this is not a dating thing.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Don't go there.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: But just, you know, be friendly.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Make them want to enjoy being around you.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Make them think of you other than just that drone that does stuff, and think of you more as my friend who helps me.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: So build those relationships in the workplace.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not only will it help you grow in your current role, and not only will it help smooth over some otherwise problem areas that you have, but also when you decide to leave that role, or when somebody else leaves that role, their role, then you have a growing network of people that you know that you are on good terms with that could help you should you want to move on later.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: I have been in organizations where they weren't great.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And there was some turnover.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: But by building those relationships, what actually happened was I built a network of organizations around my organization that had friends in them.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I needed something, when they needed something from me, we would help each other because of the fact that we knew each other.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: We built those relationships over time.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to like everybody.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to make everyone like you, but build relationships in your workplace.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Don't shut yourself off.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Number six, identify a training plan.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: Once you've been in the role for 30 to 60 days, figure out what are the areas where, you know what?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of lacking in these areas.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Or I'd be more valuable to the team if I knew these things.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: And develop a training plan focused on your role.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be the world's flashiest plan.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: It may not be learning the latest and greatest new stuff.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_02: It may be about learning technologies that, quite frankly, are older.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: But figure out how to be a benefit to your organization and create a training plan about that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And talk to your boss about it, talk to your supervisor, whoever that is, and say, hey, these are the things I'm looking at learning in order to be more valuable to the organization.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And do you have any input?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you want to rearrange some things.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you have some thoughts about what I should and shouldn't learn.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: Identify a training plan that will help you grow in the role.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: And you may say, well, Tim, I don't want to always be in this role.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Having work experience is huge.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And having a boss who can see you're working hard and getting better at the role is huge.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And when it comes time to get a raise, you want your boss to be thinking positively of you and thinking about the fact that you're working hard towards something.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this is not a guarantee that your boss is going to give you anything.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: I've had bosses that it doesn't matter what you did, you weren't getting anything.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: That can happen.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: But work as well as hard as you can in that role.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Take the time, develop that training plan, figure out how to be better in that role.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Do what you can do.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's all you can do.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: Do what you can do.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you don't do what you can do, then why would your boss do anything for you?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So do what you can do, and hopefully your boss will meet you in the other half.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: Number seven, work towards independence.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Not independence from the company, but independence from oversight.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: When your boss can give you a task and know that it'll be done and done well and done on time, that's huge.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Remember that your job is to help your boss get their job done.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And their job, if they're a head of the software developers, their job is to have a software created.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if your boss knows I can just take this task and give it to Tim and know that it's going to get done, then they don't have to worry about it.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: They can spend less time focused on you, which means that you are more valuable to them.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you have to have your boss involved all the time, that drains their resources, drains their time.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that makes them question whether or not you're worth the effort.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you're getting work done, but your boss is spending just as much time working on you, well, then your boss could have done that work instead.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you haven't added any value to them.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: So you want to be able to, as much as possible, be independent, be able to take a task and get it done.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so the more you can work towards that in your first 90 days, the better.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because that will, when you get to that 90-day evaluation mark, if you have a training plan you've enacted and are working on, if you have built good relationships in the organization or the department, if you're working towards being an independent developer and you have written good documentation, you're following that documentation, you are a team player, you're an ideal candidate.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: You're an ideal employee, and that should be reflected in how you get treated.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, again, I do want to say not all organizations are great.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And there are organizations that it doesn't matter.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: However, you can't really say that it's your organization's problem if you haven't done what you can do in your role.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you've done what you can and your organization still isn't seeing that, isn't acknowledging that, isn't it helping you grow in your career, isn't giving you raises, those kind of things, you can look at moving on.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: But having done all that you can, you now have a great story to tell, your next potential employer.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: You can talk about here's the things that I did, and here's how it just didn't match up with what my employer reflected back on me with.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so then it's a great story about why you're moving on.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I did all that I could over two years, over three years, and I just didn't feel like it was being reciprocated.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: I just didn't feel like I was going anywhere, even though I was working very hard to be a better employee every day.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great story to tell your next employer.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: So whether it benefits you now or later, it's important that you go through these seven steps to really launch yourself well into your new role and make sure that you become an extremely valuable employee.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: All right, great question.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for asking it.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamtimCore.com and enroll in a course.