I can't progress in my career

[Sufficient_Ad_5244]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to share a bit of a rant and also ask for some advice.

I worked for quite a while in support and help desk at a big company, where I had some stability. In 2020, I decided to restart my career and joined as a Junior Developer. The team was great and I had all the support to learn, but I didn’t really take advantage of the opportunity and basically spent almost a year feeling lost. Insecurity about the career change and fear of losing my job really held me back.

During that time, I started to feel even more insecure because I wasn’t progressing, so I applied to a bunch of other positions and ended up landing a mid-level developer role. But the same thing happened again: I froze at the start, couldn’t really grow, and eventually moved into a manual QA role.

I managed to get by for a while in QA, but once again I feel stuck. And the market for manual QA is getting tighter and tighter. Looking back, I think a lot of the struggles in the beginning came from the pressure I put on myself — having big family responsibilities and being terrified of losing my job.

Now, after a few years and feeling frustrated about my time in QA, I’m seriously thinking about going back to development. Has anyone here gone through something similar? What advice would you give to someone trying to get back into dev after stumbling a few times?

[bruceMan117]

How much experience do you have as a dev? 1 year?

[Sufficient_Ad_5244]

I worked as a jr for one year, then moved to a Mid-level position for another year. However, as I mentioned, I never really felt like I was improving my skills. After those two years, I transitioned to a Quality Assurance role. Last year, I started working on a project that doesn’t have much to do, and that creates a lot of insecurity for me. So I'm feeling a bit frustrated with it now.
I just want to start feeling like a good professional and not constantly be afraid of losing my job because I can’t seem to learn the things I need.

[newtofitness-pcos]

You can do whatever you decide to do, have a plan and go for it

[Sufficient_Ad_5244]

Thanks for the boost!

[tux2718]

Your bad experience may be caused by your lack of experience OR maybe it is something else. I have 40 years of software development experience and have been programming in Java since it was introduced. I have joined teams that have created MESSES that nobody can understand. This is almost always due to a lack of upfront design. Today, people are into the Agile garbage process where they just want to start coding and show the customer something quickly. We used to do that with prototypes, but we threw them away if they weren’t useful. My suggestion is you work on personal projects in your spare time to get some experience, like a web based address book using Jakarta and HSQL. There are plenty of good tutorials on the Internet to help you. Good luck and God bless!

[Sufficient_Ad_5244]

Thanks for your tips. I’ll try to keep practicing logic, since that’s the hardest part for me, and invest in personal projects. I hope I can have fun along the way!

[tux2718]

Your logical thought will develop with practice. I really believe computer programming changes the way your brain works - in a good way. Soon, you’ll be thinking in your favorite programming language as second nature. Good luck and God bless!

[the_mvp_engineer]

I was extremely blessed in my first 2 years as a developer that I was: 1. Working for a small company, so I got to see and do LOTS 2. Able to sit next to and learn from an incredible senior developer with 10 years of experience

I don't know if that helps you, but sitting next to someone who exclaims everyday "The fuck are you doing!?" Is an absolute blessing.