Juniors are not needed in IT and have never been?

Whatever. But what do I do as a fresh university graduate?

We discussed this in one of the previous episodes, I think. I told Lera and her friend Orincha my story of landing my first jobs: I worked as a camera-man, as a journalist, as some local paper zine editor… Each time I presented myself naively claiming I was the man for the job. And I was ignorant enough to believe so myself.

I landed my junior-level job at Unity at a salary about ten times higher than the minimum wage in my country and then in a few weeks they figured out I was quite shitty as a programmer.

Honestly, I figured it out together with the team and then made it work for them - I was good at managing Unity’s beta forums, talking to users, and gathering and processing feedback. My peers were good at programming, I was good at taking over the tasks that they were reluctant to do - a win-win.

I am trying to say that I had to figure out how to make myself useful for my team or I’d get squeezed out. It is I who had to understand the opportunities, adapt, learn and led my team to believe that if they invested in me, I’d start bringing value instead of just eating the time of the senior professionals next to me.

I am not the best role model, and my playbook is one of many to base your thoughts on how to thrive when you land your junior job. This still leaves the question of how a junior can get into the company, but we discussed it in the audio and our Telegram chat.

Remember back in the teenage days when your best friend and you split for a summer and then in September you reunite with almost another person who you don’t know how to bond with?

Below:

• How to make sure the course is good before applying?

• Why we’re all squatting on the cover and how it is connected to the text and audio

• The alternative cover from 14 years ago