
How to invent your own evaluation criteria when management is vague? - SlyBoots
I&#x27;m a year into my first programming job. I was the one with the least experience and knowledge among a team of senior+ level developers. I was supposed to be doing game development on a mobile app, but... that&#x27;s not how it turned out.<p>I&#x27;ve been shuffled around tasks, had things pulled out from under me, been taken off my team and put back on it, and had to tackle huge and multifaceted tech stacks without support or previous knowledge of them. When I ask about what I can do to earn a promotion, or what is expected from me, or what goals I can set, or what skills my leads want from me, I always- from a variety of leaders and leads- have gotten either a vague answer or no answer (&quot;That&#x27;s a question for so-and-so&quot;, &quot;It&#x27;s different for everyone so I don&#x27;t want to put a time table on it&quot;, &quot;Here&#x27;s our vague job tiers outline that says &#x27;be able to complete tasks on time with help from other devs&#x27; which is what you&#x27;re doing&quot;). This has gone on for a long time and I can&#x27;t see it improving. I&#x27;m unsure how to evaluate myself in this environment.<p>My job feels more like a liability since most of what I do is learn the idiosyncrasies of our code base and chip away at busy work my lead gives me for lack of anything else to do. I know I&#x27;m not gaining marketable skills here but I&#x27;m having trouble finding another job. I experience imposter-syndrome big time in that regard. I&#x27;ve had phone interviews where they ask me about what I do and I have a hard time distilling it. I&#x27;m asked what I make, what I&#x27;ve contributed- but debugging legacy code and wasting a lot of time in the scrum processes we follow don&#x27;t cut it.<p>Anyone else been in this bind? How do you tell potential employers that you hate your current company because they&#x27;re stuffing you in a hole in which you can&#x27;t grow or develop your skills? Are there places out there that know how to foster the novice programmers in a professional setting, or is it selfish of me to expect that?
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dudul
First of all "debugging legacy code" is a _great_ skill to have. Anybody can
find their cubs in shitty code they wrote, being able to work with and improve
crappy legacy code is a rare skill IMO. I would not be shy to highlight that.

Second, there is no shame in saying that you've reached a point at your
company where you are not learning anything new, and you are looking for an
environment that will help you grow further.

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jarvi
Man, welcome to the world, this what you are going through, is called gaining
experience. These people are doing what they just know, and managers don’t
know nothing except from brown their noses at their superior asses. First off
all read the following Book: "Soft Skills: The software developer's life
manual” and at the same time you will have to start your own little project
using your favorite technology, hosting your code on github, running it on an
service like heroku or other develop and deploy site. That is what you are
going to show in front of the question of what did you make, good or bad it’s
going to be yours. That is going to be your job presentation card, remember
they aren’t asking about what are you beeing paid for, they are asking what do
you love to work in, and if you can code an app for nothng in return just
passion and if it works, then you will have the question answered, and you
will know what it takes to code something, and most important off all, you
will be able to get a better job than the one you have now. good luck man,
keep the coding fun and clean

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dudul
Reading "Soft Skills" is great advice. Very good book, I learnt a ton from it.

> remember they aren’t asking about what are you beeing paid for, they are
> asking what do you love to work in, and if you can code an app for nothng in
> return just passion and if it works

I tend to disagree with this statement. All companies care about is indeed not
what you are being paid for, but what you can do for them. They care about the
value you can create for them if they pay you. Now, having your own projects
to show is a great way to showcase that :)

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JSeymourATL
> I'm unsure how to evaluate myself in this environment.

Understand that your situation is sadly, very common. Leadership in your
company is not truly interested in developing its people. They would prefer
that you simply go about putting out fires, cheerfully insuring the machine
still runs.

Still your current employer can provide an excellent laboratory in which to
develop yourself. On this subject, Peter Druckers wisdom is timeless >
[http://academic.udayton.edu/lawrenceulrich/LeaderArticles/Dr...](http://academic.udayton.edu/lawrenceulrich/LeaderArticles/Drucker%20Managing%20Oneself.pdf)

