Working experience first year: A brief summary
Published on: 5/27/2024
Introduction
This post is about my first experience working in a corporate environment — from the application process to a year-long perspective on the journey. I want to share how I felt and what I experienced, hoping to present my point of view and personal take on things. I also hope this might help others, in case there are any valuable tips to take away from the post.
Landing the job: nerves, calls, and a breakthrough
It was the third and final year of my bachelor’s degree, and I knew I had to be punctual and eager in my job applications. I began applying systematically to every opportunity I could find — graduate programs, internships, full-time positions. Only after a personal video, a technical Java quiz, and three interviews did I finally get the call from the HR employee I’d been in contact with. Sweaty and nervous, I picked up on the first ring. The news was worth it: I had landed a one-year, full-time, paid contract at a massive banking software company. Hope that the following paragraphs can illustrate the impressions, feelings, challenges and gains, that I’ve experienced over the last year and a half.
About the people
I’ll start with what I found most essential: the colleagues. It took just a few days to feel the atmosphere — a friendly, sharp, and fun bunch of peers. What stood out was how relaxed and confident they all seemed. By contrast, I barely dared to let a word slip into the conversation at first. And yet, it’s precisely because of them that I came in early every day and didn’t leave the building before my contract allowed. They hadn’t all come from fancy universities. Most didn’t even have a master’s degree. One of the sharpest minds I met — who quickly moved from frontend tweaks to configuring servers and deployment files — had simply completed a popular full-stack bootcamp a few months earlier. One thing I really appreciated was the small age gap between me and the colleagues I spent the most time with. As I said — I was overwhelmed by how brilliant everyone was, and honestly felt like an impostor most days.
Day One and beyond: entering the code jungle
On the first day, after some introductory chats with one of the section heads, I met my mentor. The very next day, with full transparency, they threw me straight into the Daily Stand-Up — a short morning meeting for all dev teams to sync up, report progress, and re-prioritize tasks with the team lead. A few days later, once I had all the permissions and access rights in place, I could start taking on simple tasks. That’s when I began diving into the code: a giant project, made up of countless repos, dozens of branches, and more Java classes than I’d ever imagined possible. Step by step, those first weeks were about learning acronyms, project logic, and the team’s preferred “way of working.” Some lessons I still carry with me: * Talk more about the code you’re visiting. * Be open about your thought process when solving a problem. * Don’t be afraid to be the dumb one in the room. * Ask, ask, ask — even if few answers come back. * And write everything down, just in case you ever find yourself in the same spot again.
Knowledge flows: How we shared and grew
When it came to knowledge-sharing, I was genuinely impressed by how deliberately it was handled. Not just in the sense of discussing technical novelties or revising parts of the code — but also in making time to explain, at a high level, how the whole architecture fit together. Knowledge could mean raising a tough issue you were facing that week and getting input from seniors — or it could come the other way around, with architects reminding us of the “why” behind certain implementations. Documentation was another major source of insight. There was a strong culture of updating internal docs in parallel with story development, which gave you something to fall back on. The volume of information was massive — and still is. That can either make you desperate and bored, or deeply grateful for the endless stream of fuel for your curiosity. Outside of the team, we also had monthly syncs with colleagues working for other customers. And eventually, we started a small hobby-project group, where we shared new tech stacks and built small proofs of concept (PoCs) together — purely for fun.
Looking ahead: growth, doubt and direction
After graduating and landing the job, I had this slightly inflated feeling of satisfaction — like life was somehow already solved, and I could comfortably survive in the cold Northern European capital. That illusion cracked a bit during a periodic check-in with my mentor and closest boss. I realized I could — and should — be doing more. Faster. Better. There was a trace of disappointment in the air when I left the first team, and it got me thinking: what’s forward from here? For me, the answer is simple: 1) Keep learning. 2) Deliver better, faster solutions. 3) And stay curious — always thirsty for more.