Today officially marks one year since I became a backend engineer. Wild. Feels like yesterday I was nervously prepping for my first day, and now here I am—still standing, still coding, still learning (and yeah, still drinking way too much coffee).
Starting your first developer job is a weird mix of pure excitement and sheer terror, isn’t it? I still vividly remember that feeling. I was so hyped to finally code for a living, but there was always that constant low-key anxiety that one bad commit could burn everything to the ground. Classic junior dev stuff, right?
So, like any self-respecting newbie, I hit the internet—blog posts, YouTube videos, and endless scrolling on Reddit to find the perfect “how-to-not-get-fired” guide. Some advice was real gold, and honestly, it probably saved my career more than once.
Looking back, I wouldn’t really say I have regrets, though there are definitely things I’m glad I learned early on. So if you’re just kicking off your coding career, here’s some pointers from someone who was exactly where you are now.
Rule #1: Never Waste Your Senior’s Time #
Your seniors are busy. By that, I mean they’re probably juggling multiple deadlines, drowning in Jira tickets, and still expected to mentor you. So one simple habit that changed everything for me was that: I never ask the same question twice.
Every time a senior took the time to answer something, I wrote it down. Notion, notes app, obsidian, whatever—just make sure it’s somewhere you can check later. Honestly, making it a personal failure to ask the same question twice was intense, but it worked wonders. One of my coworkers (almost a senior himself) even hit me with “Man, it’s impressive how you remember this stuff” So I take that as a win.
Rule #2: Seniors Aren’t Your Personal ChatGPT #
Funny story, one of my fellow fresh grads once told me, “Bro, I treat our senior like ChatGPT.” At first, I laughed, but later it kinda bugged me. Seniors are humans with limited bandwidth, not some always-on chatbot. Please do respect their time.
When you approach them, try:
- “Could you point me to where I can learn more about this?”
- “What keywords would you search to fix this issue?”
- “Can I get your quick opinion on this approach?”
See the difference? You’re not just asking for an answer. You’re showing you’ve put in the effort and you’re trying to learn how to think, not just how to fix one bug.
You show effort, they appreciate you, everyone wins.
Rule #3: Question Everything (Respectfully) #
If you’re ever in a discussion with your senior about a solution, always ask questions! Especially if something seems off. Don’t challenge simply for the sake of it, do it to genuinely understand.
Sometimes it’s tempting to keep your mouth shut, but don’t. Great engineers love thoughtful questions. Sometimes, a junior’s fresh eyes can catch something everyone else has become blind to. But your tone is everything. You have to approach it from a place of genuine curiosity.
- “Can you explain why we chose this approach? I wanna make sure I get the reasoning.”
You’ll often catch stuff even seniors overlook. Trust me, they’ll respect you way more for speaking up thoughtfully.
Rule #4: Use Your Downtime Wisely #
There will be times you’re stuck waiting—on code reviews, dependencies, whatever. Don’t waste it scrolling Twitter or Reddit. Treat downtime like a gift to get ahead:
- Study your codebase. Just poke around and find out.
- Watch tutorials on tech your team uses (Spring Boot, Docker, Kubernetes, Kafka).
- Go deeper into your main tech stack—Java dev? Dive into Spring Boot. Golang guy? Deep-dive into concurrency.
The T-shaped developer idea might sound cliché, but it’s legit. Go deep on your main skill, and explore broadly on related tech when you have downtime.
Rule #5: Learn the Lingo #
Every team has their own slang—code smell, tech debt, spaghetti code. Sounds goofy at first, but learning it makes communication fast and effective. Plus, it makes you feel like you belong, like you speak their language.
Rule #6: It’s Called Imposter Syndrome, and Everyone has it #
Real talk: Everyone has imposter syndrome. Everyone feels like they’re falling behind at some point.
In my first month, I was drowning in FOMO and asked some more experienced devs how long it took to feel confident and autonomous. Most said around 6-10 months. Ten whole months! So if you’re freaking out now, relax. Competence comes from consistent learning, not overnight miracles.
Singaporeans call this “kiasu”—that fear of missing out. Tone it down, breathe, and focus on daily progress. Eventually, you’ll look back amazed at how far you’ve come.
Rule #7: Respect the Dark Arts of Other Teams #
Early in my career, I didn’t get why we needed Database Administrators (DBAs). I mean, I write SQL. I can SELECT * FROM users just fine. Why do we need a whole separate team to review and run my queries?
Then I ran into performance issues I couldn’t solve, and talking it out with a DBA is what helped, so that’s when it hit me. Optimizing a query for a table with 100 million rows is a whole ’nother level of craft, and mastering it is someone’s entire whole career. Understanding query plans, indexing strategies, and replication lag is a deep, specialized skill. It felt like dark magic to me, but to the DBA, it was just another day at the office.
So respect other teams. From DBAs, DevOps, to Product Managers, these roles exist for a reason. The stuff you take for granted is their expertise. Respect it. You’ll learn a lot more, and you’ll be a much better teammate for it.
Closing Thoughts #
Being a junior dev is an intense ride. You’re gonna mess up, feel lost, and occasionally feel like you’re killing it—all in the same day. Just remember: ask smart questions, respect your peers’ expertise and time, optimize your downtime, and always stay curious.
You got this. Now, let’s go make some dope stuff.
