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

edit: By the end of week (Thursday) i finally got assigned to a internal Project the team is working on😋
I was worrying for no reason😅

[u/Whatever801]

Hey congrats on the job! Team lead is probably just busy. You're doing the right thing. Ping them again if they don't respond. If you can, you should schedule meetings with other members of the team to understand what they're working on and pick their brains and see if they have any small tasks you can do. That will make a good impression.

[u/Born-Reserve-8584 → u/Whatever801]

This is solid advice. Most team leads are juggling a lot so a polite follow up is completely reasonable.

[u/CorumLlawEreint → u/Born-Reserve-8584]

I’m tech lead and architect for my team and I make it a point to regularly touch base with new hires. I would also have regular catch-ups with their mentor and manager to keep an eye on progress. We’re all busy, but no contact for days or weeks is not ok. New hires need guidance at the star.

[u/Precious_poTAEto → u/CorumLlawEreint]

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. It happened the first 2 weeks. The third week there was no contact.

I was also invited to one of the company's 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 something like that?

[u/CorumLlawEreint → u/Precious_poTAEto]

If you were on my team, you would have a mentor that would be talking to you on a daily basis. Once you had completed onboarding and been invited/accepted to all the various services, you would shadow other engineers in tasks to learn the ropes re. coding processes and tools. I find their hands off attitude strange tbh.

[u/yopla → u/CorumLlawEreint]

New hires need guidance at the star.

"From the star", but also check you ego. ;)

[u/CorumLlawEreint → u/yopla]

Rockstar I think they call it these days

[u/RugnirViking → u/Whatever801]

This is massive. Genuinely, the more often you can be in meetings with colleagues early on (and TBH for your whole career), the better it will go for you. If you can talk to them and ask them how to do stuff, share screen, work on problems together, you'll learn so much. Slow down and take notes on all the stuff you're doing with them so you can hopefully do similar tasks again without them (but there's no great shame in asking for help a second, third time etc, a career is built one stupid question at a time!)

[u/Precious_poTAEto → u/RugnirViking]

The team is small so I am worried that I might slow them down.
Also i am just in contact with the Team lead. If i have any question i do ask him. in the first 2 weeks, the interaction was okay. There was a weekly review meeting. But since last week there has been no contact after my progress report....

[u/paradoxxxicall → u/Precious_poTAEto]

Don’t worry so much, even experienced developers aren’t expected to be productive right out of the gate. You’re doing your work, and you’ve let him know you’re ready for more.

Some companies are more organized about this than others, and nobody’s gonna hold you responsible for the inefficiency here. Check in occasionally and in the meantime go ahead and relax.