What school doesn't teach you for your first programming job

This post isn't necessary advocating for dropping out of school to get your first programming job, but rather a list of things I wish I had a better understanding of before I started my first job as a programmer outside of school (college).

Graduating from school; the only time we can wear this cool hat

How you view your work

We know you are working on homework all the time, but it is different in the real world. You can't approach working in a job the same way as you work on homework in school. At school, the assignments you do are against you; one on one. A duel.

In a real job, work isn't simply something to get done, it is means to an end. Other people are now counting on you to get your work done. You become a dependency to others, your team, and the organization as a whole. You become a necessary lynch pin in your job.

So that is what a lynch pin looks like

If this raises the stakes, good. That's how you need to begin thinking at a real job.

What you learned does not apply to work

This is the same qualm I have about early to mid-level education too.

Throw it all away, toss it aside. What you know does not apply, only how you apply it. The key that determines how well you do in a real job is how do you approach problems. You will not get pre-packaged problems like you did in school. The problems you will get will be a combination of business logic, inter-team coordination, a quality/speed tradeoff and the raw knowledge you have.

Oh, and you won't know everything, and will have to get the answers to your questions in the right way. (We'll explore how to do that within this article).

How you get the answers you need

There are no singular professors to get all the answers you need; instead, you have multiple.

Unless of course you have unicorn developers on your team, at which point they could be the person that can answer any question you might ever have.

Origami unicorn

You will have to get your answers from your project managers, your senior tech leads, your manager. It's likely you will get a quarter of the answer from everyone, and you'll need to synthesize the solution.

Get used to politics and gossip

Remember those good-ol' days in high school with all the gossip and politics? They are back. Your mileage will vary, but be prepared to get involved again.

The most predominant thing you will be involved with, or at least be an observer of, is what's loosely called politics in the workplace. Politics looks like this:

1. Your team works closely with another team. A new feature is being developed that interacts with both teams. Your manager decides that your team will do work that offloads the more complicated work to the other team (even if you have capacity to work on it).
2. You are assigned to work on a project that is clearly out of scope of your capabilities and get no resource you can reach out to for questions.
3. Upper management relationships decide which teams get more resources. This either means more tools for you to get your work done or more time you need to spend in the office to get your work done on time.
4. Friends with the manager get extra time for lunches and are allowed to slack off a little bit more at work without reprimand.

You'll come to see that your job isn't just how good you know your field, but how well you fit in too.

Learning shouldn't stop

Businesses use tools, and tools don't stop developing. You need to keep up reading your newsletters and blogs. Reading also helps you become a better programmer.

It is almost essential if you want to keep your job to keep on learning - my previous manager has criticized me about this point in my past, and I've since adapted.

*Disclaimer - "learning" in this context means constantly. If you aren't reading something new every day, you aren't learning enough. This, coming from my previous manager who is heavy-handed - take the advice with a grain of salt.

In seriousness, learn at your pace. If you don't feel you can read blogs every day, don't. Maybe learning for you means reading a blog post once a week, that's okay. As you learn more, it will become easier to learn. Start somewhere.

Time management

Hopefully, you will be working on a team that does Agile.

Using a Kanban board in Trello

Learn to manage your time working on the work that is on your plate. Whether you use Agile or another software development process, find a process that works best for you. There is no one going to hold your hand or help motivate you to get your work done.

Work-life balance

Don't expect it. IT jobs frequently work past the 40hr work week. People expect everything to be up 24/7, and that means you'll spend off-hours on support. If you aren't on support, you might find yourself spending your weekend coding that new feature that needs to be in by Monday morning. 

The pay of our jobs usually compensates for the long work weeks, but expect it to take a toll on you eventually.