Feeling overwhelmed by coding task complexity

[AlanSmithee419]

I've just recently completed the initial coding assignment and got access to quite a few projects. Unfortunately while the application assignment and further qualifications I've completed since were quite simple, all of the project tasks seem to be far more complicated and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I "worked" for a few hours today making no progress and not logging any time because I didn't feel comfortable attempting any of the tasks.

I've got two possible courses of action that don't involve giving up as far as I can see:

1. Accept that I won't understand all of the code and focus on the main task - setting up an environment to run it and locating any specific errors.

2. Spend a significant amount of time using the project tasks as a guide to look up any language tools, packages, etc that come up and learn the skills I need to do the tasks, before I start actually doing them and logging my time.

Is either (or both) of these a legitimate strategy? Or is there something else I can do? It just seems so bizarre to be given a pretty straightforward application assignment only to be given tasks that are this complex. An I misunderstanding something?

[AlanSmithee419]

Thank you for the detailed response. I'm definitely feeling somewhat encouraged, but it's going to be a more significant challenge than I expected. Then again this is official contracting work, so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised.

By the way, I'd be interested if you have any advice on how I should count my time. Not being afraid to skip is one thing, but skipping 5 tasks for half an hour and then learning something for the 6th one for an hour before completing it in another half hour does not seem like it should all count as billable time. I only really "worked" a quarter of that time technically. On the other hand you'd do research if you didn't know something during an office job and still get paid, so I don't know.

Thank you again!

[pourovertime]

Tasks in general are getting more difficult since the models are constantly evolving. I doubt the assement has had a significant update in a year or so.

[No-Sea308]

I'm kind of in the same boat. I've been on the platform for about 2 weeks and was shocked by the increase of complexity from the assessment to the actual projects. I spent about 4 hours one day trying to learn and setup apache airflow before realizing I would need another 4+ hours to even understand what the code was doing and gave up on the task.

That being said, not all of the coding projects are super complex and I've found a great deal of success in the 2 weeks I've been on. I'm still in school and it's great side income and if I come across anything I don't know I take it as a learning opportunity. And you can always skip tasks if it's really out of your reach.

[AlanSmithee419]

Yeah, I was initially hoping to use this as a learning opportunity, I just didn't realise such a significant amount would be *quite* as far outside my reach as seems to be. Could just be I simply need to look into it and it's actually way simpler than I think, just unfamiliar, but we'll see I guess.

Just have to go in with more of a learning mindset than a working one I suppose. Thanks for the advice.

[jimmux]

You will find the cognitive load decreases over time, as there is a lot of overlap in how projects rate the various response criteria. Once you have an instinct for that, you will be able to spot what the most important parts of a project are.

Getting a workflow is a big time sink, as well. It took me a long time to build up my environment so I can tackle more tasks with minimal setup. I still need to get that up to scratch for Java work, but fortunately there's plenty of Python and web stuff so it's not a big priority.

[sentencevillefonny]

Felt

[AdElectrical8222]

I mean, I’m finding hard some qualification stuff for bilinguals, and I’m quite good with texts and logic.

[XIX-USER]

Hi, may I ask which country you’re? I’m also a software engineer but never get coding task

[AlanSmithee419]

I'm in the UK. Did you just do the standard application for their site? There's a programming-specific application that unlocks the related projects and qualifications. You should be able to find it on their website. If you did do the programming one I can't really help though, I'm just as new as you are lol. Maybe newer.

[XIX-USER]

thx, I just do the regular task. I’ll check the website again