Must be lucky to have started out at a tiny company, where the only real programming knowledge they had before me was some third party dude not even part of the company who I've spoken to maybe two or three times just to say hi good day goodbye. At the same time I started, we also merged with another tiny company in the same business and they had one firmware guy. So, nobody at all told me what to do to get set up. On the projects I've been heavily involved in, I've been free so decide what micros, toolchains, IDEs, and so on, that get used. They ask me what direction we're gonna go when it comes to what I do, not the other way around. Used what I was familiar with and was cranking out deliverables just before the end of the quarter.
We did eventually fall into a hierarchy with me being the subordinate due to my total lack of real world experience prior to the gig, but in the last 3 years he's only made me use github right off the bat, try to follow Barr Group embedded C standards best I can, and install one IDE I didn't already have to help out with one of his projects; all pretty reasonable requests. Still free to make the decisions on my own projects; my superior is utlra-introverted and only speaks to me when necessary and with as few words as possible (which can actually be quite irritating).
That sounds pretty good. I'm not in tech so I never experienced something like the skit, but it sounds like it is a common thing in tech that you'll get throw in the deep end.
I would have probably sank if it were me getting thrown into the deep end like the post. Am self-taught in everything, except for a basic electronics course I took back in 2009... I knew a lot of things when I started the gig, but hooo boy there was a lot I didn't know. Was able to ease into it with just developing new production equipment. Am a little seasoned now, thankfully, and not just restricted to designing circuits and writing firmware for production equipment anymore.
I wonder if that was more common back then, where employers willing to let new employees learn on the job, because the employers weren't expecting someone to know everything (the whole joke about requiring 10 years of experience for a Junior Developer position now).
(post is archived)