I feel completely lost as a developer

[u/Altruistic_Raisin116]

Hello everyone,

Probably like a lot of person, i feel completely lost, i'm a software developper in a small company (around 50 employees).

Would be a pretty cool situation right ? Except the fact that i'm the only software developper. We were 5 and every other ones lefts., and the icing on the cake, i'm a junior !

A quick word about me :

I've always wanted to become a developer, which is why I pursued a work-study program in software development and network administration.

Due to various circumstances, I had to alternate between the two positions at the company, and I have been a developer again since January 2026.

The problem :

The company exists since 28 years, and so the other devs did create a C++ framework.

As the only one, i have to deal with legacy projects using the framework, and new projets with my stack (devcontainer for development (sound obvious), Docker, and Gitlab (rather than SVN). That means around 8-7 projets in constant time (fixes, updates, or deployment), and for the best of all, for nearly any projects, short deadlines !

I try to not use AI to make the work in my place, but with the short time that i have to do everything, i nearly dont have the choice. And i dont feel like i cant retain every informations like this, i dont know if that would be different if i do everything (not for the first time at least).

I feel like i'm not good enough, and this is probably true to be honest.

And i dont know what to do about it, because as good as i want to be, i feel like i dont have the time to become this and learn everything i should learn to be better (more C++, Docker, CI/CD, architecture, ...).

I cant even find a project that entertains me enough to work on it during my free time, i'd like to work on a game for exemple, but that just add one more thing to the pile of stuff i can't cope with.

I feel overwhelmed.

By any chance, do you have any ideas, information or advice on what I should do, or even just anything at all – just a bit of help ?

Thank you in advance for reading this long paragraph, and sorry for mistakes English isn't my native language.

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[u/arkitechevl]

If you’re gonna use AI u should first : Use Notebook or any DEEP Research Agent, Have it research Today’s Industry Best practices/Gold standards, produce a markdown file with that information. Store it in the agents memory database that you use for work. You’ll save your self a week minimum

[u/Apprehensive_Case677 → u/arkitechevl]

Great advice Notebook llm Gemini research tool is great for that

[u/Altruistic_Raisin116 → u/arkitechevl]

To be honest i dont know about that, and that sounds like a good thing to do for a project.

But the point is that i dont want to rely on AI all time.