My First Three Months as a Web Developer

I passed up my three-month mark as a paid techie at Get Satisfaction two weeks ago. Do you know what that means?

1. I got this fancy envelope from Hackbright:




There was money inside. A lot of money. Refunded tuition money for working three months at a partner company. Wedding money.


2. It's time for an update about working as a web developer.

Overall, Get Satisfaction has been a great place to be.

Every day, I marvel at how surrounded I am by talented, smart people who can collaborate well. Every day, I also spend at least a couple of hours staring at my screen trying to figure things out. Sometimes my questions are so general that I can't really share them with anyone, like, "How do I use PostgresQL?" and other times, all I need is for someone to spot that one ridiculous missing bracket (or to tell me to just paste the code into Sublime Text 2 so I can line them up!). I've loved learning about CNAMEs, SSL certs, and single-sign-on, and each time a light bulb turns on, I love that our platform allows me to post about what I've learned in our community to build up our customers' available and searchable knowledge base.
 
I also am so appreciative of pretty flexible schedule that allows me to go to doctor appointments and run errands without feeling guilty. It's fun to see ideas develop as we work on our new platform, and it's nice that everyone's opinions are valued.

And listen to how cool this is--last week, our CEO, Wendy Lea, invited all the female employees to her home. (Do I ever admire Wendy--when she speaks, I want to take notes, and often I do. Sometimes I even tweet what she says.) We mingled and snacked as we marveled at her view of the ocean and the sunset, then Wendy started a discussion about being women leaders in tech.  The discussion was positive and helpful, and I think we all feel really united from that evening spent together.

Like anyone else, sometimes I get annoyed or frustrated by questions or tasks. Sometimes, my brain is fried and it would honestly be better if I just went home (sometimes I go, sometimes I don't). Occasionally I get discouraged when I think about losing my Python skills before they were ever really strong, and there are still so many technologies I want to learn that I don't use at work, so I try to do a bit of hacking on the weekends.

I've been a Firefox fan for years, but Firebug just has not been enough and Chrome has become my hero for development purposes. It was amazing to realize this week that I have learned enough to help my mentee with some front-end development. Hurray!

So there's your update.