For anyone going into a programming or coding field, I figured this might be an interesting topic.
It's my 3rd week at a real life programming career job, and I'd like to spread some info about what it's like.
A little background on me first; I am someone who learned code at a young age (8) on my own, and then took coding classes in highschool and college. I am still taking programming classes currently as a second semester Sophomore.
I have made award-winning software that I won't get into for the sake of length.
When I got hired to this new job, we discussed the many benefits I obtain from this job. To wow you a little bit, the building has 3 floors, each with its own kitchen that gets stocked every Monday. There are over 40 2ltr bottles of soda we can help ourselves to, many many different family sized bags of chips, snacks, yogurt, bananas, apples, coffee, and they have bakers make us fresh bagels and every Friday, donuts.
We can also page the front desk during core hours to go get us anything. If I want pizza, I can simply call our front desk and they'll get it for me, free of charge. Or like one of my co-workers does, asks to get a specific tea from the store, and someone will go get it for him.
The business is also open to us employees with our key cards 24/7 so if I wanna work 3am-10am I can. Or 7pm-4am. Doesn't matter when.
While this job seems like it would be amazing by the pampering that we get, mentioned above, the coding environment is very complex and there are over 1700 source files to look through and learn.
It took me a whole week to. Get my Java environment set up on Eclipse, with detailed instructions telling me how.
The past few weeks, I've had whole programming books thrown at me like "read this over the weekend" because the servers they use are using some code I've never seen before.
Just last week, I overheard two co-workers talking and they were discussing how another co-worker "already wants to start helping code the software".
"Really? He's only been here a year" was the reply.
I've been digging into the files trying to figure things out, and each day gives me a headache working 6hrs/day staring at code trying to figure out what files use what code and where the base of it all is. I've been destroying everything by adding random returns and outputs, yet it seems I'm getting nowhere.
Seemingly getting nowhere is quite common, apparently. They suspect it won't be until May or June before I start understanding how everything is set up and coded.
Although it is a lot of effort and requires brain power trying to figure **** out, I can say the pay makes it worth the while, especially as a 19yr old.
Hopefully this post sheds some light on what it's like to be a programmer at a company. If you're interested in coding, maybe thisll turn your head away as reading coding books isn't for you, or youll become interested because you want the pampering.
I definitely didn't expect it to be this difficult, so maybe you coders wouldn't either.
**** this is a lot longer than I thought it was gunna be. Sorry brosephs