I wanted to share that I landed a job as a php developer for a company close to where I live.
Offcourse it will be different then doing it as a hobby but I would like to ask to all php developers how different it actually it is.
I had 2 days that I had the change to work at them and to figure out if I actually wanted it.
I came home after those days and sat down with my gf and told her how much I liked it and how she thought about it.
Because we have a daughter of 4 and my current job is a production employee in a egg factory, so she was kinda nervous but told me immediately she wanted me to do what I would love to do.
I need to admit it is a whole change but I think that thanks to my gf it will all work out.
Sorry for this long meaningless post haha,
Just wanted to share it.
For sure there will be a big adjustment, although I have had no real experience there - I have always freelanced. I imagine there will be some pressure to meet deadlines, and do things the way the company does them instead of the way you like to do them but there will also be the exciting challenge of working with a team, contributing to the company and probably learning a lot from them too.
Two differences I can think of might be coding style and version control.
For example, you may be used to
function do_something($arg) {
and they want
function doSomething( string $arg ) :string {
or
function do_something($arg)
{
it could take a while to get used to the “standards” but shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
If you’ve never used version control before that might take a bit more to get up to speed.
But it will be more crucial that you do as you will now be collaborating instead of working solo.
Congratulations! Change can make anyone nervous. On the other hand, it sounds like now you’re really stepping into an area that you really love, as opposed to the egg factory (is that correct?). Two thoughts, and I apologize in advance if I’m overstepping. It rather sounds like possibly you don’t deserve this position which requires more qualifications and knowledge. You’ve got to be your #1 fan in whatever you do.
The second thought is to suggest you work at this job for however long it takes you to gain more knowledge and experience, and then you’ll be in a position to look for an even better position.
I keep coming back to this thread because I’m interested in finding out people’s responses to the OP’s question. It’s wonderful to have so many people offer their congratulations, but is there anyone who can share their experiences moving from freelancing or doing web development as a hobby into a 9-5 web development job in a larger organization?
What were some of the major adjustments or hurdles that you encountered?
@oddz I can see that someone has passed quite a bit of time writing specifications (or should I say translating what the boss wanted, often a mystery even for him, to a comprehensive language?)
In my experience rarely instructions come direct from the dev manager instead project managers and other departments “define” project requirements and see them through to execution. However, *most the time the requirements they define are vague and not well refined leaving the dev to fill in all the details and execute. So I guess my answer to your question is yes.
Others may have different experience but I’ve worked at 5 different companies over the last 9 years and they all have been similar in that regards. Programming is easy breaking down poorly communicated none-sense into functional requirements that can be delivered on time and budget is the real key to success in this industry.
Also learning to read and deal with other people code regardless of quality. The majority of work out there is operational maintenance of preexisting projects. So if you don’t learn to embrace and make the best out of past poor decisions you’re up for a rude awakening compared to programming in bubble your custom cms…
Congrats! My suggestion is to be honest about your skills and set reasonable expectation with your boss. I’ve seen many new employee putting stress on themselves by setting their expectation too high. Also, Software Engineering isn’t just about coding.
