My experience as a new developer at Expressen/Lifestyle
About a year ago, covid-19 was declared a pandemic and 2020 became a much different year than what I had expected. I quit my job and joined a bootcamp to become a JavaScript developer, made friends with people I had never met in real life, and most recently, started working as a full stack developer at Expressen & Lifestyle.
Expressen & Lifestyle works with apps and websites for the tabloid newspaper Expressen and lifestyle magazines such as Damernas Värld, Sköna Hem, Teknikens Värld etc.
Being a new developer, like many others I’ve experienced imposter syndrome and worried whether or not the things I had learnt this past year would be enough. Working with experienced and great developers, it’s easy to start thinking somehow you ended up where you are by chance rather than by ability.
Two things have really helped me overcome the feeling of being an imposter:
- To get productive. Solving problems together with other developers is a lot of fun, and getting in “the zone” is the best way to forget about the imposter voice and focus on the problem at hand instead. In my team we often do mob programming, which has helped me feel more comfortable and confident as a developer. It’s also exciting, although a little unnerving, to see something you wrote being put into production to be used by real people.
- Feedback. The feedback I received during my first few months has been one of the things that helped me not only deal with imposter syndrome, but also made me feel incredibly welcome in my team. The value of feedback cannot be overstated, and knowing I’m part of a workplace where this is appreciated is probably one of the things I love most about the company culture.
Having to work remotely, there were also things that I expected would be more difficult. I imagined that it would be harder to figure out the team dynamic and culture of the workplace. I still believe that this is one of the challenges of onboarding people remotely, but I’ve gotten some insight through both the people I work with, and the demos where the different teams show off their work. Working with both developers from my own team and from other teams at Expressen & Lifestyle, I’ve really been impressed at how everyone jumps in and helps out whenever it’s needed, and the great willingness to share knowledge.
I’ve personally learned a lot from the insights we’ve had working together with other teams, and hope to also be able to help out others in the same way in the future. A lot has happened during my first few months, and these are just a few of the experiences I’ve had while working here. I look forward to seeing what other great things lie in store and to continue learning and developing with this amazing team.
