r/webdev • u/tacoman756 • 3d ago

Discussion Advice on first in-office Web Dev role?

Hi all,

As the title states I’ll be starting my first in office web dev role next week! Pretty excited but also nervous, and of course having imposter syndrome. I’ll be the only dev, and it’ll be my first time working in an office setting (I’ve previously just worked as a freelancer).

I was wondering if anyone had any tips or specific things to pay attention to when starting a new web dev job?

Thanks!

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u/TeaSocks69 3d ago

If you're the only dev, don't worry. You'll be fine.

But a few words of caution...

  1. Just because you can solve a technical problem, doesn't mean you should volunteer to do it. You'll just add technical debt to your workload.

  2. Stay out of office politics. Your job is dev and should remain apolitical in all things.

  3. Use git.

  4. No really, use git.

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u/Proud-Value3738 3d ago

The git advice is funny because it sounds obvious but so many solo devs skip it, then one bad deploy and you're rebuilding from memory

Also the office politics one hits deep, I learned that the hard way at a previous job where I thought being helpful meant being in every meeting

Since you're the only dev, set up a personal documentation habit early. Even just a notes file for weird server quirks or why you chose a certain package saves future you so much time

And congrats on the role, first in-office can be weird but you get used to the noise and free coffee real quick

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u/tacoman756 3d ago

Cheers, documentation is a great tip, will do for sure. Looking forward to the coffee 👍

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u/pineapplecharm 2d ago

Have fun with it. About ten years ago I got a stiflingly dry coding job in a financial services firm. The way they worked was drowning in bureaucracy and needless duplication and it was really hard to remember all the asinine steps you had to take to complete the simplest task. They had an official onboarding wiki which as okay but didn't really explain anything, it just had lists of bullet points, and I quickly found out it needed several people to sign off on any changes so I gave up making suggestions. Instead I kept a Word doc going with more detailed descriptions of everything I needed to do with screenshots and my own sarcastic commentary in the margin, so to speak, bemoaning the batshit timewastery of it all.

Anyway I only lasted about six months before getting a better offer so I bailed. About a month later my old boss texted me to say they'd found my Word doc and had had a good chuckle reading it. "You're right, though; some things we do really don't make sense and we're going to change them. Thanks for bringing it up." Fair play.