I began my career as a Software Engineer in Jan 2022, so it’s been just over a year now since I started working 🤯

Last week, my colleague James Won and I had the amazing opportunity to present to a Computer Science class at the University of Auckland about our journey and working in frontend.

Here’s an excerpt from the talk where I took a trip down memory lane to reflect on how I ended up here and what I’ve learnt along the way.

Selfie with my colleague and the lecturer!

Selfie with my colleague (James Won) and the lecturer (Andrew Meads)!

Selfie with the class!

Selfie with the class!

How I ended up as a Software Engineer at a tech scaleup

In my final year of university, I considered a few career options. I was interested in software engineering, product management, UX/UI, consulting etc, but I ultimately decided to begin my career as a Software Engineer for several reasons:

  1. I figured that having the technical experience as a Software Engineer would always be valuable when transitioning to those other roles. For example if transitioning to PM, you will be able to see things from an engineer’s perspective and empathise with them. If transitioning to UX/UI, you know how the code works and can then create dev-friendly designs.
  2. Finding grad / junior software engineering roles in NZ is much easier than finding grad / junior PM or UX/UI roles. In fact for PM, there’s pretty much no Associate PM grad programme unless you go for big tech in Australia 🥲

I chose to work at a scale up (a startup in growth phase) because I felt like it was the sweet spot for me. It has more structure and support than an early stage startup, but it has a lot more flexibility for innovation and growth compared to a corporate. (PS See here for my comparison of different types of companies)

Where it all began

Where it all began :)

Things I’ve learnt in my first year

This past year has been full of new experiences and learnings for me. Here are some things I’ve learnt:

1. Being a junior doesn’t have to be a limiting factor 🧽

When you first begin your career, it’s easy to think of yourself as just “the intern” or “the junior”.

You might not feel comfortable speaking up in meetings as you may feel your opinions aren’t valid, or you may not pick up certain tasks as you may think they’re beyond your ability.

However you don’t have to label yourself. Everyone starts somewhere. All the seniors were once juniors, and soon there will be juniors after you.

So a much healthier mindset to have when you’re starting out is to be a sponge. Everything is new to you so it’s all about trying out different things and gaining experience. It’s the best time to make mistakes because people are also a lot more forgiving / lenient.

2. Your career is up to you to shape 🗺️

Our education system is very prescriptive. There are different stages to follow and exams to pass. Your degree is highly structured. Everything has a guideline.

Once you enter the workforce however, your career is up to you to shape. Most companies have career progression guidelines, but even then, it’s not like you will be promoted automatically after a set number of years of working.

The scaleup that I joined had no grad programme hence there was literally no structure for me to follow, so in my first few months of working, I sat down and created a career plan where I outlined what my goals were.

I decided that my main goal for my first year was to learn as much as I could about frontend and progress to being a Software Engineer 2. I also wanted to gain exposure to other technical areas eg BE, infra, SRE etc.

I shared all this with my manager so that he knew my intentions, and together we worked on them to achieve them. Around the end of last year, I got my first ever promotion! It’s quite crazy that it happened within my first year and wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my mentor , manager, VP, and colleagues. I’ll probably write a post about this sometime so watch this space! 👀

3. You don’t ask, you don’t get 🙋🏻‍♀️

I knew that university and work were very different, but I thought, “Hey, at least I’m doing something related to my degree so it can’t be that different right?” Wrong.

After spending my first few weeks Googling and inundating senior Software Engineers with all my questions, I was starting to doubt my abilities. Massive Imposter Syndrome was creeping up.

A lot of tech companies have dedicated mentorship programmes for their grads, so I decided to propose this idea to my manager and VP. They were super keen on the idea and one of the seniors volunteered to be my mentor.

Having a mentor has been extremely beneficial to my growth so far. We have been able to discuss and clarify mental models which have strengthened my understanding of concepts; I have been able to learn tips and practices that may not be “Googleable” and would have probably taken me years to discover; I have been able to learn from his career experiences and journey.

I definitely recommend having a mentor and / or being a mentee! Read here on why and how you can start one too.

Mentorship aside however, the key learning here really is that it always pays to ask. If you ask, there is a 50% chance the answer is yes or no. If you don’t ask, the answer is 100% no. Choose wisely, my friends 🫡

4. Learning is a never-ending journey 📚

Uni gives you the basics, but you will still need to do lots of upskilling while you’re working.

Computer Science mainly teaches you theoretical stuff like databases, algorithms, data structures etc, and I had only learnt Python, Java and C in uni. So pretty much all my frontend knowledge I had to learn via doing personal projects, courses, and on the job.

Tech is a constantly evolving field and there’s always going to be new languages and frameworks to learn. Now there’s also stuff like ChatGPT and we need to figure out how to make it complement our work rather than it steal our jobs lmao 🤡

And to be honest, I think this applies to all fields, not just tech. There’s a Chinese saying that goes “活到老，学到老” that literally translates to “You learn for as long as you live” 👵🏻

Here are some resources I recommend::

5. Get involved in the local dev community 💕

When we’re at uni, there are plenty of clubs and societies for us to join. But when you enter the workforce, it’s really hard to find a community outside of work.

There’s a platform called Meetup that has plenty of such groups you can join:

I recently went to my first ever dev event which was on accessibility and open-source software. Here is my blog post on what I learnt about accessibility!

Thoughts

In conclusion, I had a great year 😁 Working life is proving itself to be more fun and enjoyable than student life 🤣 I’m not missing those assignments and deadlines anytime soon 😅

While I’ve grown a lot in my technical and soft skills this past year, there’s still lots of room for improvement so I’m looking forward to more learnings in year two!

Also, super grateful to have been able to share about my experiences to the Comp Sci students at UoA! Never thought I’d be giving a talk at a uni in my life 🤯 Thank you to my colleague and the lecturer, Andrew Meads, for the opportunity!