I work as a Junior Python Dev. at a company for over a year now, almost a year and a half, I’m based in UK, London. Since they hired me, I’ve been working alone on a project, an AI/Data Science project, using technologies I’ve never used before, in an area I’ve never worked on. I was given the task to develop it, with no specific deadline but to make progress.
I thought, okay, great, I’ll have something new to learn. It was good for a while, it worked for a few months, and then they assigned me another project to work on. This another project is also full of new technologies I’ve never used before. So, I’m working on two projects, and I faced more and more challenges because, as I mentioned, many things were new and still are. I asked for help several times, but fundamentally, I never received help because, as it turned out, there’s no one in the company who understands this specifically AI-related field. I found out later that they would like to sell this product (that I’ve been developing on my own) which to me is kind of insane since I’m just a junior and never did something like this before…
I always got the response to try to solve it on my own because they couldn’t help. So, I tried to do it alone, lots of attempts, research, rewriting, testing, and I managed to complete about 90% of the project, but I got stuck. I don’t know how to finish it, and I’m not getting any help. I feel like I’m starting to hate programming because of this. The worst part is that since I didn’t finish it, since I got stuck, I was told to decide whether I can finish the app or not because if not, they have to let it go, and that would be quite bad… Is this normal or I’m just at the wrong company? Salary is also really low with no benefits, the only good “benefit” is that it is full remote.
I always hear that my performance is very good, my work is appreciated, and people enjoy working with me. However, because of these, I fear that they might part ways with me… although, as I think about it, maybe it would be for the best? Some senior developer friends of mine have told me that I shouldn’t have accepted this job offer in the first place, but unfortunately, there were no other options at that time.
My first job was like yours and looking back I can tell you for certain that you desperately need senior guidance more than you think you do (and preferably in person) and this company isn’t going to give you that. I’d just stick it out while applying elsewhere so you can get a job where you will get more attention. I know it feels bad to see all your work go to waste after all this time, but if that happens, it’s the fault of the company, not you. You asked for help, they didn’t provide it.
And, side note, projects get scrapped all the time; that’s the nature of R&D. You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it even if the project was going great. Unfortunately, that’s just how it goes sometimes.
No, this isn’t normal and you are at the wrong company. These people seem to have no idea what they really want and no commitment to achieve it. To me it sounds like AI projects for the sake of AI projects.
I have lead several projects in their starting phases. Designed the use cases and the initial architectures. As such, I have seen several projects where managers just wanted something to point at and say “we’re doing AI here”. We scrapped them before they started or gave them the simple non ml solution they really needed.
Real products were always developed with at least 5 people, even when only one of them was proficient in ml, at least a senior developer took care of the application side of things.
I would recommend to look for other jobs while you continue with your work.
About being stuck, reach out to communities like here or even better your local dev scene with abstract problem descriptions of what you’re facing(without leaking internals of course). Most of us still love to solve a puzzle, at least that’s how I got into programming ;)
Sounds like there’s more than a few freelancers in here by the tone of their responses.
Let me be clear. NO. It’s Not Ok.
More experienced devs should’ve been unambiguous about this. And if they’ve found themselves in a similar situation when they were starting out, that doesn’t make it ok.
What you’re describing sounds unethical. To leave a developer to understand difficult problems is why they pay us. But to expect a junior dev to either bring a product to market or to drop it, is problematic on multiple levels.
Any decent shop appreciates that SWEs are a valued resource and to retain them, they should be supplied with adequate support. This comes in the shape of Senior leadership, training, and even career guidance.
Software is trivial to write. Maintainable, performant, delightful, software is truly difficult. Good companies appreciate this.
Like another poster mentioned, keep riding it out while you find your next non-exploitative, position. Your company should seriously examine themselves.
Like others said you’re being exploited and you’re probably better off elsewhere.
They know they are exploiting you.
You have asked for help and they do not care. They have not sunk enough cash into this for it to be a priority.
If it’s not a priority, then there are ways you can make this advantageous to yourself.
Start experimenting and flexing while applying to other jobs. Assist your colleagues with things they are doing, which are clearly more important than your deliverables anyway since no one can be spared. Scale back the effort on your projects in the effort of becoming likeable and network-minded.
Ideally when you move on, you don’t want to be in a position where the ONLY thing you walk away with is a tech stack.
You want at least a few positive references and some solid business understanding too.
Yeah. I’ve been in a similar situation before at a startup. The startup I was in was still better managed than what you’re describing and after 9 months I just bailed. Yes I learnt a lot in the first 6 months but it was obvious after a while that the company itself was not going anywhere. Your best bet is to decide if you are really learning things but I would suggest to start prepping to leave in the background. Spend 80% of your time working and 20% interview prepping.
It’s not good, but it’s not that uncommon.
Half the companies out there are below average (ok, below the median), and kinda suck.
IMHO The key line in your long wall of text was:
It was good for a while,
so cool… you had a good experience, but have now outgrown the role so it’s reasonable to look for better.
Is it ok?
No.
Does it happen?
I’ve never worked at a big company, in the smaller firms where I have worked it does happen, yes.
That’s honestly a “toxic” work environment. I feel guidance and having on point tasks is important for a junior.
normal or not, it seems you’re in a bad situation right now. if you need help with the project i can free an hour or two for helping out a fellow human being :) I’ve been developing AI solutions for almost 4 years now i might be able to help a little.
It definitely sounds like they are exploiting you. Having developer experience also allows you to adapt quickly to new things, so what they are asking is not ok if they don’t provide any assistance to you to help you learn how a more experienced dev is able to handle such projects and how to guide them.
There’s no real growth opportunity for you at this job. No way for you to learn / level up anything but your confidence and independence.
It’s unusual, but not that unusual on the lower pay end. Normally a company would hire someone a little more senior to do the unsupervised-team-of-one thing. But they went cheap.
It sounds like they’ve made a bet that this product is worth $X, and doing it faster, better, or more robustly won’t impact that.
It’s probably better for you to finish the product and leave, but only for the story and the closure. You should be searching for your next job now. Find something where you’ll be part of a team - you’ll learn a lot more.
👋 Hey, don’t worry mate, I always get stuck in a project and always find a way out 😉. I don’t know where you got stuck, but remember that the goal of the business is to make money, not to produce perfect software. So I would advise you to fix it so that it works, even not perfectly.
Some people would love the opportunity to have their own self contained project with no hard deadline and get to learn as they built it. Many opensource projects are similar for example.
But it’s only right for a certain kind of person, and it sounds like it isn’t right for you. Management should have noticed that and reassigned you. The fact they didn’t is a bit of a red flag. (although note that it’s really hard to judge progress in software development, and therefore really hard to judge if someone is taking 10x longer than needed for a task, especially a one-person task like this).
Here are your options:
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Quit and move. You are under no obligation to finish these projects before taking on a better job at another company. Go looking.
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Speak to your manager saying you want to bring another person on to help with these tasks. Suggest hiring someone new if nobody else in the org looks spare. Then you get to progress up to a ‘team lead’ type position on your two tasks. You can hire someone who has the skills you are lacking.
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Speak to your manager and say you don’t have the necessary skills to complete these tasks without guidance. Ask for a mentor to be assigned, and do ‘pair coding’ for a few hours a week. You’ll learn a lot and it might give you the knowledge needed to finish the job.
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I had a similar situation for an internship. Any technical company has an obligation to provide training and resources for its employees, so if you feel lost after asking for help its already a red flag.
I give the same advice I give for toxic sexual partners… hit it and quit it 😂
I’ll tell you my view, although it is obviously not a religious truth.
I have been in similar situations, and do not take it as an scaring fact, but companies do not tend to be 100% honest in the appreciation they have for your work, even if they want to. I’m mot doubting your work and progress is uber-valuable, but companies usually tell you that they appreciate you while thing are going in the good way. When the company faces issues, every detail they were not considering becomes a poisoned arrow against you.
That said, do not take this as a pessimistic view. I think you should just answer to yourself honestly: are you learning and having a growth perspective (as an ML engineer/Data Scientist) within the company? Are you feeling respected and valued (including in conditions/salary)? If the answer to any of these questions is No, I suggest you to begin searching for your new place. Remember that you don’t owe a thing to the company and the day they feel you are no more useful for them they will let you out without a doubt (that applies to any company).
Whatever you decide, I wish you good luck.