Here I am sitting at my desk. Ready to write down two years of experience as a software engineer. There’s so much stuff I can talk about, but i’ll keep it concise!
First thing I did when I got out of college is to look for opportunities. After some interviews I decided to join Ordina Belgium as a .NET Consultant.
Why did I start @ Ordina?
The reason I chose Ordina as my first company is for the obvious reason that they had a reasonable paycheck for starters and more so because they actually invest in their new people. The kickstarter program, for example: As much as a success story for the company itself, as for its starters. Focusing around your technical skills and soft skills (which are often forgotten @ consultancy firms).
The best thing? You get educated by Ordina’s own employees! Most of the time you’ll deal with senior level people that can teach you a thing or two!
Things to keep in mind when starting your first job
Growth
An important factor for the growth of a junior engineer is that you have to be surrounded with experienced people. There’s so much stuff to learn simply because you haven’t experienced it yet, and not to mention you’ll learn so much faster if you actually sit in a room with like-minded people. One of the fun parts of being a junior engineer, that most people tend to forget later on in their career, is that you can ask stupid questions without anybody laying eyes on you. A lot of people will say that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. In reality, people have certain expectations. Questions that seem obvious to some people may crush those expectations. That’s why you see a lot of people with many years of experience not feeling comfortable to share their opinion until they heard somebody else's. This was visible in the first few months as I started, but we grew as a team and in the end our communication was very open. Keep in mind that my first few months at work was literally ‘Working’ -> ‘Eating’ -> ‘Work some more’ -> ‘Sleep’ and repeat the cycle. This was super fun as I was very eager to learn. The reality is that you will not keep this up, you’ll feel drained because of all the knowledge you need to absorb in a short period of time. I also learned a very neat trick of Bart Wullems who was our Lead architect at our project. Having small retrospectives at the end of the day is important for your growth! Ask yourself, what did you learn? What did you want to learn that you might’ve missed out on? That’s a big reason why I started to blog. For me, blogging is nothing more than writing my experiences down for other people to learn from.
Communication
As an extroverted person in a mostly extroverted team, was super fun! Communication was mostly open. I also learned that you should be careful with criticizing someone. Some people tend to take it personal very quickly. So instead of criticizing someone, try and have an open discussion about it. Saying that x y and z are bad is not constructive. Try to think of a solution before mentioning x y and z. Don’t always wait for the retrospective to come and unleash all the issues. Got a problem? Try to fix it asap. Being honest about your communication was a valuable lesson for me. This is something they don’t teach you in school. Don’t be a yes man. If you don’t know something, ask for help! If someone explained something twice and you still don’t understand it, keep asking questions. It’s the only way to ensure that the whole team understands what their task is.
Meet like-minded people
Find motivated people that meet the following characteristics:
- knowledge
- humbleness
If you can find experienced people with those characteristics you’ll learn so much in a short time. I’m lucky that I actually got to meet people with those characteristics!
Changing job is important
Besides climbing up the income ladder much faster, it is important to realize that change is difficult, but switching jobs is necessary for both personal and professional growth. Getting comfortable in one place is OK for a while. You have to understand when to step out of that comfort zone. The two years at Ordina was a great experience, but I always longed-for something fresh, different and out of my comfort zone. It’s time to spread my wings and apply my knowledge in a smaller environment and grow from there. Moving forward I’m going to be a kick-ass full-stack developer at Mediportal.
“MediPortal has the general objective of supporting and improving communication between the various actors in healthcare”
A small company, pretty close to where I live (no more traffic jams!) and a lot of room for improvement. That”s why I’m eager to apply all the things I learned at Ordina.
I hope that every one of you who is about to leave college, currently looking for their first real job, gets to be as lucky as I was — so that your first job experience won’t be a turmoil of anxiety but rather an incredible experience.
Special thanks to:
Team lead Jens Helderweirdt. A man of the people, a good sense of humor and always ready to listen. This guy laid the stepping stones for me when joining Ordina. A guy that allows you to have a great discussions and always tries to understand the other side. The proverbs that this guy can pull in dutch is insane!
Lead architect Bart Wullems. A guy with an immense amount of knowledge, but yet so humble! After 10+ years in the industry still motivated to learn and apply new technologies in everyday projects. This guy is never afraid to back down from a challenge! Bart, along with Jens were the key figures in my development at Ordina. Without them, my story would be completely different, a big thanks for that! This man can bake pizza’s like a boss! You can find his blog at: https://bartwullems.blogspot.com/
Our analyst/designer Erik Laeremans. Creative mastermind. Does so much for us (the developers). Deals with tough issues on a daily and manages to find solutions for them! Not only did he teach me a lot of UX/UI stuff, Erik taught me a lot about human interaction. If you’re ever reading this. Don’t give up on climbing the rope at fedpol!
My Co-Developer: Pieter Verledens. A special guy, with special takes and special traits. Analytically very strong! A guy who gives you a completely different take on software development.
Wouter Van Gorp: HI!
