4 ms·

Two issues: You are new to the job, in your first month and you are already pushing for all the interesting stuff. Welcome to the world of commercial programmin

Two issues: You are new to the job, in your first month and you are already pushing for all the interesting stuff. Welcome to the world of commercial programming! Sometimes it sucks but also sometimes knuckling down and getting stuff done will either a) get them to put you onto much harder/interesting projects as you are easily capable with the easy stuff you've been knocking out. b) Getting the easy stuff out of the way means you can then spend time tinkering on algorithms or reading online to further your knowledge. At the end of the day you have money and time on your side, I was once in a similar position and I cut back on everything social to optimise my time away from work to find a job that I really enjoyed. Good luck but try not to moan too much, even 6 months there will help dividends with finding future work. (No one wants someone that is gonna quit immediately because they don't get what they want to do all the time).

eddieroger 12y ago
This is right on with what I was thinking, but I'd add that it's the recruiter's job to make the company sound so appealing that new recruits want to work there, but they aren't the ones driving work assignments. Not only is it acceptable to ask what you're going to be doing, it's encouraged. They may have well known you'll be doing Java stuff at first, but still flashed the lights in your eyes. Chalk it up to a learning experience.
please_help 12y ago
Thanks for your comment. I couldn't expand too much with the allotted 2000 characters but the thing is that I can't really get transferred to the other projects. The interesting work is done in an office on the opposite coast and I can't move for family reasons. I understand I might sound difficult but what really got me down is that the interviewer pretty much flat out told me "You will not do CRUD. Brush up on your algorithms!". Anyway thanks again for the comment it's nice to know people were in similar situations and got themselves out of it.
- falcolas 12y ago
  > I can't really get transferred to the other projects. Yet. Remember - your skills are an unproven commodity; performance on an interview has nothing to do with your actual abilities on real code. You're being tested now. Many companies will not allow transfers for up to a year (including places like Amazon). If you decide to stick it out, you might be surprised what hard work will do for you. [EDIT] Noticed the family bit after posting; these kinds of issues will resolve themselves with time as well. Remote work is possible, and if this is a startup, they may be more willing to accommodate your living restrictions, letting you work with colleagues who aren't in your office. Its also possible that they plan to expand their "difficult" work into the other office; I just watched a company in my town here completely take over the bulk of development work from the home office, solely on the backs of a few skilled and perseverant individuals.
- meddlepal 12y ago
  Personally, I would suck it up and take the money for a year, gain some experience and then bail. It sucks that they may have been deceptive, but it will probably end up being a good learning experience. Also, the hard truth is that most programming is not exciting and really is just what you described, building CRUD apps. Further, who knows what you would have been doing if you were at that other office. You're a junior developer and nobody is going to give you particularly exciting or sexy tasks on day one or day 365.
- dsl 12y ago
  This is pretty common in the tech industry. Everyone sort of adopted the "Google style" interview with lots of algorithms and complex problems, but few have Google style problems to solve. When poorly managed most of these interviews turn into a random subset of the engineers at a company asking you to implement something completely useless so they can "help you along" and seem smart when they judge your solution. (hint: startups have a billion other problems to solve before optimizing a sort over what a standard library can provide will ever move the needle) An extension of this is every developer regardless of level ends up getting the algorithms questions and mind games because it is the only way most engineers know how to interview. Unless the company is still very small (3-5 people), most of the people you talk to in an interview won't have any control over what you are working on anyway. They will probably be your peers and tell you what they are working on, but don't take that as an indication of your role unless you hear it from the person you'll be reporting to.
- scalesolved 12y ago
  You are welcome, to give you a bit more detail that fits closely to your experience is that I was in a situation where I didn't want to move and now I'm working for a great company and do it all remotely. I enjoy the company but even as a senior developer I'm not on the cool exciting new projects I'm down in the legacy code fixing stuff. Ultimately you are going to end up working on what makes the company the $$. Outside of work I code the stuff I don't get a chance to do at work, get a cool idea and work on it in github/bit bucket etc. Once you've had the 6months plus at the company combined with some project work on a passionate personal project you'll find the programming world will offer you more opportunities than you thought possible! Chin up! :)

eddieroger 12y ago

This is right on with what I was thinking, but I'd add that it's the recruiter's job to make the company sound so appealing that new recruits want to work there, but they aren't the ones driving work assignments. Not only is it acceptable to ask what you're going to be doing, it's encouraged. They may have well known you'll be doing Java stuff at first, but still flashed the lights in your eyes. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

please_help 12y ago

Thanks for your comment. I couldn't expand too much with the allotted 2000 characters but the thing is that I can't really get transferred to the other projects. The interesting work is done in an office on the opposite coast and I can't move for family reasons. I understand I might sound difficult but what really got me down is that the interviewer pretty much flat out told me "You will not do CRUD. Brush up on your algorithms!". Anyway thanks again for the comment it's nice to know people were in similar situations and got themselves out of it.

falcolas 12y ago
> I can't really get transferred to the other projects. Yet. Remember - your skills are an unproven commodity; performance on an interview has nothing to do with your actual abilities on real code. You're being tested now. Many companies will not allow transfers for up to a year (including places like Amazon). If you decide to stick it out, you might be surprised what hard work will do for you. [EDIT] Noticed the family bit after posting; these kinds of issues will resolve themselves with time as well. Remote work is possible, and if this is a startup, they may be more willing to accommodate your living restrictions, letting you work with colleagues who aren't in your office. Its also possible that they plan to expand their "difficult" work into the other office; I just watched a company in my town here completely take over the bulk of development work from the home office, solely on the backs of a few skilled and perseverant individuals.
meddlepal 12y ago
Personally, I would suck it up and take the money for a year, gain some experience and then bail. It sucks that they may have been deceptive, but it will probably end up being a good learning experience. Also, the hard truth is that most programming is not exciting and really is just what you described, building CRUD apps. Further, who knows what you would have been doing if you were at that other office. You're a junior developer and nobody is going to give you particularly exciting or sexy tasks on day one or day 365.
dsl 12y ago
This is pretty common in the tech industry. Everyone sort of adopted the "Google style" interview with lots of algorithms and complex problems, but few have Google style problems to solve. When poorly managed most of these interviews turn into a random subset of the engineers at a company asking you to implement something completely useless so they can "help you along" and seem smart when they judge your solution. (hint: startups have a billion other problems to solve before optimizing a sort over what a standard library can provide will ever move the needle) An extension of this is every developer regardless of level ends up getting the algorithms questions and mind games because it is the only way most engineers know how to interview. Unless the company is still very small (3-5 people), most of the people you talk to in an interview won't have any control over what you are working on anyway. They will probably be your peers and tell you what they are working on, but don't take that as an indication of your role unless you hear it from the person you'll be reporting to.
scalesolved 12y ago
You are welcome, to give you a bit more detail that fits closely to your experience is that I was in a situation where I didn't want to move and now I'm working for a great company and do it all remotely. I enjoy the company but even as a senior developer I'm not on the cool exciting new projects I'm down in the legacy code fixing stuff. Ultimately you are going to end up working on what makes the company the $$. Outside of work I code the stuff I don't get a chance to do at work, get a cool idea and work on it in github/bit bucket etc. Once you've had the 6months plus at the company combined with some project work on a passionate personal project you'll find the programming world will offer you more opportunities than you thought possible! Chin up! :)