Hello, I’m a junior developer at a small company. I’m in a tough situation and looking for opinions.
The company hired me for an ML/data-oriented position, basically a backend developer with ML/data focus. Currently, I’m tasked with a full computer vision project, which means that I have to do almost everything on my own: object detection, analysis, database storage, data extraction, etc., all in real-time. I received a subpar laptop, making testing and regular work difficult. Despite limited support from senior developers, the project works, but not flawlessly. How can they expect me to build this?
I’ve asked for help, but the response is delayed, and there’s no mentoring. Recently, I expressed my struggle, and they questioned why it’s not finished. I fear they might let me go. Some senior friends of mine advised me to leave. I’m unsure; any advice? Also, my salary is 50k which as I know, rather low.
A working project counts for a lot. Kudos for getting as far as you have. As a person who has worked for startups for a lot of years now, I can tell you that your efforts count for a lot. I don’t know your background exactly, but I’m sure you have a lot to learn about a lot of things. Getting good at all of it can take the better part of a decade, and the senior people on your team know this. You’re likely safe in that regard. They’re not mentoring and helping because they’re busy, not because they disapprove or dislike what you’re doing. That’s just how things are, usually! In terms of making your project better, I personally rely a lot on logging to make the bugs and behavior more visible. DataDog is very helpful. Linting is another force multiplier that makes your code much less buggy and much cleaner for minimal effort on your part. Good luck, you got this!