I don’t code nearly as much as I used to. I get some coding in weekly, but I find I do more design, code configuration, leadership, and platform work now as apart from straight-up pure coding where I used to hammer on keys at all hours of the day until I hard-working functionality in my hands that made me sit back and high-five myself at what I had built.
Don’t get me wrong, being a Junior Developer was a very stressful time as I started off knowing one language and felt like I needed to know twenty just to be baseline marketable. Somehow I was able to string together skills and jobs to make it work, all the while coding till I couldn’t code anymore.
I loved being a Junior and when I think back to what I miss the most, here it is.
I Didn’t Know what I was Coding
I had no idea what I was doing. All I know was that I had a problem, I had a ticket and I had to get them both done if I wanted to learn more. And learning was what I wanted to do. I was hungry and it was like picking up bounties in a game, I was grabbing all of them that I could, picking them off as well as I could. With each one, I got better.
I don’t shudder at what I used to code, I relish it, I welcome it. Sure some of my code was garbage, but it got the job done and I’m sure it’s still…
