My First Day as a Professional Web Developer

So after working for 3 weeks at my first professional job as a Web Developer, I’ve decided that it would be a great idea to document my experience. I know for a fact that a plethora of aspiring programmers want to know what working in a professional environment is like. I used to think about how much I would love to shadow a professional developer even for just day to see exactly what goes on. If you feel the same way, this is the blog post for you. My name is Tyshan Prince and I plan to give you a breakdown on exactly how my first day as a web developer panned out.

But before we talk about my first day, here’s some advice.

Please move all pre-existing thoughts and assumptions on what a professional programmer does on a daily basis into the nearest trash bin.

Seriously, you must completely wipe your brain’s storage of anything related to what you think a professional programmer does. In fact, for every new position you start I would say this is a good habit to have. There is no reason to bring old work habits (espicially bad ones) into a new professional environment. I believe going in with an open mind is the best thing you can do for yourself because you have no idea what to expect.

Also, I am in no way trying to generalize what all programmers do on a daily basis. Working as a software developer is so special and exciting because you create your own work. Think about that for a second. When you create a web application, you are the one responsible for maintaining it. Again, this is not the same for every position but essentially, you are in charge of what work you’ll need to get done as well as the time management for that project.

Now on to what you guys came for…

I was hired on as a PHP Support Developer for a subrogation company. Now before you google subrogation I’ll just do it for you. “Subrogation is the substitution of one person or group by another in respect of a debt or insurance claim, accompanied by the transfer of any associated rights and duties”. Basically the company goes out and collects money for insurance companies from people that owe them. Not really important for you guys to know but it’s a good starting point.

The hiring process took about 3 to 4 weeks. I submitted my resume and answered a questionaire, typical job stuff. About a week later, I recieved a phone call from the hiring manager. She told me that I made it to the second round of the hiring process and the next step would be to complete a coding challenge. So at this point, I’m extremely hyped. This was the first time I actually made it past the first round of applicants.

The coding challenge went as follows.

<?php
$people = '{"data":[{"first_name":"jake","last_name":"bennett","age":31,"email":"jake@bennett.com","secret":"VXNlIHRoaXMgc2VjcmV0IHBocmFzZSBzb21ld2hlcmUgaW4geW91ciBjb2RlJ3MgY29tbWVudHM="},{"first_name":"jordon","last_name":"brill","age":85,"email": "jordon@brill.com","secret":"YWxidXF1ZXJxdWUuIHNub3JrZWwu"},]}';
/** 
* Instructions: 
* 
* Given the above JSON, build a simple PHP script to import it. 
* 
* Your script should create two variables: 
* 
* - a comma-separated list of email addresses 
* - the original data, sorted by age descending, with a new field on each record 
*   called "name" which is the first and last name joined. 
* 
* Please deliver your code in either a GitHub Gist or some other sort of web-hosted code snippet platform. 
*/

You guys should try it. If you are stuck, please send me a Direct Message on Twitter.

About a week after I submitted my answer to the code challenge, I was called again by the hiring manager and she told me that she would like to schedule an in-person interview. Up to this point, I had managed to remain calm and collected because I was still in the comfort of my own home. When I finally got the interview, I started getting that butterfly feeling in my stomach. It’s both terrifying and exciting because you have absolutely no idea on what to expect.

The interview was just like any other typical job interview. The development team was a platoon of 3 and they asked me pretty basic questions. “Why should we hire you?” “What are some projects that you have worked on?” “How familiar are you with php and laravel?” Honestly, It was less about my skills as a programmer and more about how my personality would fit in with the group as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, you have to know your stuff but it is just as important that adding a new team member does not create a shift in team chemistry. If you have an interview in the future, Listen to me, there is no reason to be nervous. You have shown that you are of value and that is why they have chosen to interview you. Go in and be yourself, be respectful and be an active listener. One more word of advice is to ASK QUESTIONS. Show that you are intrigued by this line of work and that you are eager to start even though your are not technically hired yet.

Okay we are finally here, my First day of work

I was scheduled to work 8am to 5pm Monday through Friday. I came in monday and I spent the first 4 hours of the day doing the new hire onboarding process. You know when you meet with the hiring manager and she goes through the whole mission of the company and what we stand for.

At 12, my boss came in and bought lunch for everyone. We sat down at a big conference room table and the team ate Meathead’s together. They told me they were excitied to have me here and it all felt very genuine. If it was all a plot to just trick me into being comfortable and less tense, it worked. We sat and joked around for about an hour and then I was escorted to my office.

This is where it gets pretty funny. I was excited to see that I would have two monitors to work on because I really hated the fact that my 13 inch Macbook screen was so small. I soon found out that the mac mini I would be working off of does not have Mac OS installed. So I’m like, okay that’s no problem I’ve done this a million times. Then I found out the reason why it would not work. I was getting the no bag entry error. I won’t waste time explaining what this means but here is a link to a apple discussion forum if you really want to know. But basically I had this mac mini that I would be working from but the team was unable to get the operating system to install.

My first bug fix as a professional web developer would be to find a way to get the newest Mac OS installed onto this Mac Mini. Luckily, I carry my macbook everywhere I go (as should every dveloper) and I began researching the issue. I found out that the problem is that this mac mini is not able to access the default boot loader and initiate the installation. Therefore, you have to install via the Mac OS disc that comes with it. Being as there are more important things to be doing than keeping track of Mac OS installation discs, no one knew where it was.

Ultimately I ended up creating a bootable usb drive and installed Mac OS via USB. Here is a link to a great step-by-step breakdown of how that’s done. That took about an hour to download and about another hour to install. Then I spent the rest of my day configuring the machine to suit my preferences. I installed zshell, PHPStorm, iTerm, Sublime Text, Node, Composer, just a boatload of software applications that I use daily. Did I mention that this Mac Mini only has 4 GBs of RAM 😅 ? Lucky me right.

Not really what you expected for a first day huh ?

I did not think I would be creating a bootable usb stick for my first day as a web developer. This just goes to show that this profession is much different from others. There is structure but there is also freedom. You have tasks to get done but you are in control of how you want to complete them.

I am really enjoying working here and I am glad I’ve decided to make this my profession. I can also see my skills as a developer improving dramatically. I work with some really intelligent individuals and just seeing them create is amazing.

This is my first blog post ever but I plan to continue documenting my journey as a developer. Thanks for reading .