Programming and engineering software is such a unique occupation. You graduate from school and you think, "This is it I've made it", only to realize that you really never officially "make it", if making it is defined as knowing all the ins and outs and everything you really need to know about how to do your job. The truth is, as a programmer, you'll never know everything. There's just so much information out there and things are constantly changing.
The best thing you can do is get comfortable being uncomfortable as quickly as you can. Realize that even the most experienced devs who've been doing this for the longest time still Google things every single day. I've had a tough time trying to balance between learning on my own and asking for help. When it's a busy day and everyone has a deadline to meet you don't want to go over and bother anyone in the zone. Especially when it takes them 5 minutes to figure out something that's had you banging your head against the wall for 2 hours. But that's exactly it. Ask them. Do your due diligence first of course, but ask the dang question. Because the worst thing that could happen is that it takes 5 minutes out of their day.
We're very lucky to have set meetings with our mentors twice a week. The first meeting is to go over and establish who will be working on what for the upcoming week, and any kind of new concepts to learn or areas where we need just a little more clarity and direction. Our second meeting is a code review where we demo our work and receive feedback and an explanation of why this was the best way to do something or another way to do it better and make it more functional. We are also provided with clear expectations of the best coding standards and practices at Code and Trust which is ultimately invaluable.
At the end of the day the curse of this industry is also it's beauty, forever searching for clarity, direction, and a new understanding of how to do your job better. I feel like tech has definitely made huge bounds from its path of toxicity and has become this welcoming environment of fostering growth, opportunity, and so much learning. Because ultimately, if you go through life thinking you know it all and there's no reason for you to learn any more about any thing, that life would be pretty boring.
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