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.

  • -_-seebiscuit_-_@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.