67. How Do I Add Value As An Employee? How Do I Make A Good Impression?

[@bigchunk1]

I'm just over a month in on my first dev job and I have to say all of this is true. Absorbing as much information as you can is a primary goal and a great way to do that is by documenting the company's procedures/setups and the like. Listening is more valuable than talking even though you're eager to contribute. Come well-rested, and embrace the transition.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for sharing.

[@mysolcsbi]

Thank You So much.. I am from Pakistan.. and people saying me c# is old now.. But Sir your one video made me c# developer and I am working with c# Sql server and Crystal Reporting. I am working Independently. Thank you so Much for your each n every word to motivate us. I remember your statement you said "Don't focus on Shining stars. just continue your work"

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

Congratulations on the job!

[@mysolcsbi]

@@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597 Its not job actually. its self employment. I made two POs and i Sold them in local Market

[@mysolcsbi]

@@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597 anyway Thañks :)

[@michaelschneider603]

"people saying me c# is old now" Possibly the same people who are telling you to program in Python? ...Which is a lot older than C#. And possibly the same people who are telling you to skip old school software development and do deep learning instead? ...Which is even older. :-)

[@mysolcsbi]

@@michaelschneider603 Thank you Sir :)

[@RogerThat902]

Really great video. The documenting things is really my number one tip as well. It's the biggest thing I look back and cringe on in my first job. I was expecting to just retain the information by doing it enough times, but in reality I was wasting time. And as you said, every org is always trying to better document things. So you'll be saving people a lot of time and energy. It probably won't be perfect, but then the next hire can adjust and improve what you documented. The biggest thing is it will give you something tangible to say you've done. In the early days it's likely you will feel overwhelmed and like you aren't doing anything enough to justify your salary. That's a simple thing that both you and your manager (perhaps to his manager) can point to as something valuable you've contributed.

[@IAmTimCorey]

I agree and I've been there too. Thanks for sharing.

[@WolfieVenturi]

Pure gold.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks!

[@jackkendall6420]

I'm starting my first job in software development soon so this video was well-timed. The idea of writing down everything you learn to build documentation for the next person is a really great one - thanks.

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

Documentation was the first thing I did when I started with Tim. It has helped me many times AND I used it to drive automation of several tasks. ... now the documentation is out of date. Don't tell Tim.

[@jackkendall6420]

@@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597 Your secret is safe with me.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Just not with me. Tom, let’s talk. 😉

[@RafeSmith4Life]

YES! Being present multiplies value in my life and it is difficult to connect with the detached. I love it when my new hires take notes. This whole video is just great. Thanks!

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for sharing.

[@danmaroff324]

Very good points made in this video. The moral of the story is, don’t be a know-it-all. Most large systems were written by different people at different times with different coding styles. You can’t just come in and rewrite everything simply because you don’t like the way something was written, especially if it’s working. Unless you were hired to do exactly that, which is not common. I’ve found that the best developers put up with poorly designed systems when fixing bugs or add new features but also clean things up along the way without sacrificing business demands.

[@codefoxtrot]

Insert quote from the movie Prometheus-- "big things have small beginnings". This Summer a CompSci intern was assigned to my group. I made it my mission as a senior dev to ignore fires and escalations to ensure I taught one foundational C# lesson nearly every day, and assign meaningful practice work. After 13 weeks the Summer Intern left with a GitHub of meaningful practice assignments and was probably more skilled than the average developer in our company. Tim's example of "an Engineer trying to help out a kid" is a model for all of us to live by. People are what matter the most-- family, friends, frenemies, coworkers, and even pointy-haired bosses in Dilbert comics. Invest in them because people are worth it. You never know if the kid processing boxes of greasy and grimy spreadsheets will turn out to be someone changing the world.

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

POWERFUL point. Thank you for sharing.

[@MiroCro11]

I'm a self taught dev. Working at my first dev job now for six months and I'm all over the place. So many informations, so many new things to learn. Very often Im not even sure about things I thought I now.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Starting out can be a turbulent time. Try your best to ride the wave. You will get there. You will slowly get into a groove.

[@jonathanvargasv2009]

Appreciate a lot your time an excellent piece of advices. There's nothing better than be an employee who adds value innovating but respecting his/her formers collegueas, giving to them the benefit of the debt rather than been an uncautious judger!

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome and I agree with you.

[@ultroai]

Thanks for sharing, great advice here. As a developer with 25 years of experience, I totally agree, some things happened in my career too.

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@r0shav]

I started a new job a few months ago and I definitely could see that my managers and seniors are superior to me on a technical level. It almost makes me question what have I been doing so far??? On the bright side I try to learn as much as I can, not ask twice the same thing and deliver the best I can. Even if they reject my PR multiple times for different reasons i try to write down how to do things... and follow my own little process to deliver better. So far this mindset have put me always in position where I become a key part in the company. I hope it does it here even though i plan switching in 2-3 years.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Keep on doing what you are doing. It sounds like you are doing great!

[@yuusource831]

As always, beneficial video. Thanks for sharing, Corey!

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

Thanks for the support and encouragement

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

Job.Add(value) Or in my case: var value = null; Job.Add(value);

[@Deathhead68]

Unfortunately value won't even compile here. At least in C#

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

@@Deathhead68 Oh, right. But every mistake just proves my point 😉

[@Deathhead68]

@@PaulPaulPaulson lol nah man, I just couldn't resist. I know this is standard self deprecation, but try not to actually think of yourself like this

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

@@Deathhead68 It's ok, it was only meant as a joke :)

[@joecasa19]

@@Deathhead68 LOL!

[@deepakha9759]

Fantastic video Tim.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you!

[@fleedum]

I should take notes of this but currently in bed, great stuff, should rewatch before every start at a new job

[@IAmTimCorey]

Sounds like a good plan.

[@S3Kglitches]

Thank you for these speeches. Always valuable

[@IAmTimCorey]

You are welcome.

[@mrigankashekharsaha853]

Hey Tim. First of all thank you for creating such great content and making .net so easy to learn. I have a question regarding the dependence injection in .NET Core. Which one should I chose for the best performance in a .NET 5 MVC or API solution

[@andywalter7426]

I have a great suggestion for a course. Could there be a course where it only focuses on building not just one real world type of app but maybe a course where there are maybe 5 of them. In this course, the planning part would already be done. Finally, would show the final results. The person taking the course would have the job to develop those apps. I would love that type of course. I have found that after I created many custom apps I needed, I was stuck because I have many perfect apps that do everything that is needed. Would like to do some business related apps but can't get past the planning stage. I had a great idea of an enrollment system for a university. Unfortunately, just knowing that is not nearly enough even if I had all the c# skills in the world. Was much easier when I was creating custom apps to fulfil my needs. Much harder when all of them are finished.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Being able to plan out a project is a big part of being a developer. When you work at a job, your boss won't hand you the finished plan. That is going to be something an employer looks for - did you plan it well and did you understand your audience well. Build that app you were talking about one step at a time. Do some research. Figure out what a university might need for an enrollment system. Think through the various scenarios.

[@andywalter7426]

I have found it would actually be best when going into a new job to actually redo the systems. Because the problem is if I can only understand it if I completely rewrite it, then they should let the person rewrite it so they can completely understand the system. I like when you said "Code is meant to be read by humans". I agree with that statement. It means that sometimes a person can only maintain a system if they completely redo it so its much easier to maintain.

[@IAmTimCorey]

While this seems like a good idea, it really isn't. The problem is that the company isn't paying you to redo their app. They are paying you to continue improving their project. Unless the application you are being hired to work on is tiny, a rewrite won't be economically feasible. You need to be able to read the code of others. Otherwise, you will not be hirable as a developer.

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

As a hiring manager who needs you to maintain an existing system, I would not hire you if you told me that in an interview. That is not what I am hiring you to do. Nor would I be happy if I discovered you doing that after I hired you. As the hiring manager, I hired you to do what I and my management believe needs to be done.

[@joeyf9826]

That is not only infeasible for a large system but very dangerous. It would take you years to rewrite countless lines of code that were written by developers before you. You will introduce new bugs when doing a complete rewrite and management will quickly start asking why you decided to do that in the first place. It's like hiring a plumber to fix a toilet and they decide to redo the plumbing in your entire house.

[@AliMustafa-xp8ih]

hey Tim thank you so much for this video i am in my last year at the university , and i will be grateful if you give your advice ,as far as you know is desktop applications development really dying? because i am practicing on c# right now and i am thinking of moving to xamarine what is your advice thanks in advance

[@S3Kglitches]

where did you learn the fact that it is dying?

[@after2003]

I have a question Tim, not related to the topic of this video though, sometimes in desktop applications specially with math intensive and memory intensive solutions there is a need to store information temporarily on local machine to be retrieved later in the code. Can the same be applied for server side web applications? Specifically I am interested in utilizing some sort of Azure disk storage for temporary files. Thanks a lot for awesome videos.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Redis might be the solution for you: kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6O0iJyflNCZf6c

[@after2003]

@@IAmTimCorey Thanks Tim for great tip. Just finished watching video and it looks awesome. Definitely on my list to implement soon. Another question. Is there a safe way to share large data structure such as a class among multiple blazor components? I am looking for sharing an instance of a class per user. Like a global variable. I tried passing in as a parameter to blazor component and it seems that the compiler creates a copy behind the scene which is not what I wanted. I also tried static classes which did not work with concurrent user scenario. I appreciate any help.

[@blackisblack22]

As an outsourcer, I always end up drastically changing the projects where I participate precisely because they call me when things are not going well. For me it is important to give it an assertive twist otherwise I would not make a difference when hired. When you have the experience you MUST change it significantly or else dedicate yourself to something else.

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

I'm not sure I am following. Are you saying you make significant changes, not necessarily because its needed to address the problems, but just so you can clearly leave your mark?

[@blackisblack22]

@@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597 No, that is not the point. When someone calls you because things are not going out well it is incorrect that you continue doing the same things that took them to that point. You must have enough conviction to give a turn to the rudder and establish another way of doing things based on your experience. If you only navigate on the projects you would be stealing time and money to who hired you.

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

@@blackisblack22 I understand your point now, thank you. There is major wisdom in that and knowing when to do it. Thanks for clarifying!

[@jorisvanlaar]

I remember you were talking about creating a tool that would help students set out a learning path, is that still happening?

[@IAmTimCorey]

It is. I am focused on that heavily this month.

[@molebogengmokonotela4922]

Working from home has introduced a new problem, where by it's nearly impossible to leave work at work as call can come in at anytime. How can one try to leave work at work even though you still working from home?

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

I made a spare bedroom into my office. When I leave the room, I am off work. Also, I have separate equipment for work vs private. That helps also.

[@xinwilson]

1. Be present when at work. But leave work at work. 2. Don't try to change everything right away. Learn the system first. Ask "Why was it done this way here?". There's usually a good reason. "Is there's a reason why you didn't consider this?". Possible improvement. 3. Document what you learned. So you don't ask same question again. And it help the next person. 4. Talk to people. Listen and take notes. ...When you're a little experienced... 1. Keep learning and get better. 2. Mentor new hires. 3. Automate. 4. Be positive. Don't be a downer. Just implementing point 3 here. Hope it's helpful for new people ;)

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thanks for sharing.

[@deepz513]

I wish I had listened to this before the damage I already did .I did all the things u say not to in this video and got the burn heavily..:( no matter how much I worked hard or dud the job really well ..they the higher ups didn't appreciate or even worse consider too

[@IAmTimCorey]

That's a bummer. The good news is that you still have time to make an impact. I know it will be hard, since you have to come back from their view of you now, but you can do it. Plus, if you change jobs, you will also have the opportunity to get it right from the start.

[@michelchaghoury870]

when .NET MAUI Will be officially released will you cover it and make vids about it?

[@IAmTimCorey]

Definitely.

[@michelchaghoury870]

@@IAmTimCorey i have to tell u a HUGE tnx, i was albe to learn and understand a lot without I would not be able to know Data Access, what Is .NET and what is .NET Core, ASP.NET, Razor Pages, APIs, Blazor, WPF, so i was able to understand and build back-ends, front-ends, and desktop apps, i really wanted to start building mobile apps with Xamarin, and i am very exited for MAUI so i am counting on u and as always you never let us down, so tnx

[@pierreplourde]

I’ve been meaning to ask, is that Charity doing the intro voice-over?

[@IAmTimCorey]

Nope. I don't know the person. She is a voice actress.

[@timmkrause6684]

„Automate as much repetitive work as possible.“ Now I feel like I’m following and watching AI RoboTim.

[@IAmTimCorey]

The more you automate, the more you can get done with the same effort. I do it all the time.

[@timmkrause6684]

@@IAmTimCorey It was meant as a joke that you may have reached the ultimate automation perfection level by automating yourself away. So maybe some sort of „AI robot Tim“ is teaching us already… Human horizontal scaling. 😀

[@IAmTimCorey]

I wish, but then I'd be bored so I guess not.

[@ZnSstr]

IF I will ever work as a developer ever

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

"WHEN", my friend.

[@سعيدأمير-و7ق]

That was indeed the right time to get such knowledge ... Thank you. I ask Allah to Guide you to Islam, Ameen.

[@IAmTimCorey]

Thank you.

[@andywalter7426]

The first job I had out of college, I was actually accused of working myself out of a job. My original job was not even programming. However, I automated many tasks. Then I created a customer management system for the company. That was when I was a beginner at programming. After that was finished, eventually there was nothing else for me to do so eventually had no job. The strange thing in my case is the more i learned, the less I made. The first job when I was a beginner, I was making the most money. The second job, I had to pay out of my pocket for some tasks I could not do. The client went out of business. Now, I found that no matter how much I know and learn, I can never get a job. The sad reality. is the job market for developers are so bad that there is an average of 1 job for every 100 qualified and excellent developers. This means that the reality is 99 people will never get the job no matter what they do.

[@tomthelestaff-iamtimcorey7597]

Andy, can you share the reference on where you got the 1 job to 100 developers? Everything I read says basically the opposite.

[@IAmTimCorey]

The issue here is not how much you learn. Learning is not the only part of being a developer. You need to be able to apply what you have learned in a way that fits into a larger whole. I have observed how many times you have pushed back on my videos saying that you know a better way and that the way the industry does it is better. You also commented on this video that rewriting an app when you start a new job is the way to go. These are the things that will hold you back from getting a job. Those aren't the mindsets of a person who is ready to work on a team or under a boss. It is always good to question why you do things, but if you are consistently at odds with the industry, you aren't going to find work very easily. You need to be able to make the company you work for better off because you work for them, and that "better off" is defined by them, not by you. If a hiring manager thinks that you are going to be contentious, they aren't going to hire you. That's why I said that when you first start a job, you should not push for systemic changes for a while. That's important. If you come in and say "I would change everything" or even "I would change these major things", you show a lack of wisdom. Even if, in a vacuum, those would be the "right" choices, you don't know the company culture, the work environment, the pace of change, the hurdles they had to overcome, and more. You can't make those calls yet. I would encourage you to spend more time doing things the industry way. Show off what you can do by putting together a business-oriented sample of your work. Show that it conforms to what is industry best practice. Show off the depth of your skill. Make it look professional and well-polished. I can tell you that if you have the depth of skill in C#, if you come across as ready to contribute (and humble about it), and if you present a portfolio that is polished and shows what you could do for a business (by having specific business-oriented projects in it - just 2-3) then you will find work. If you don't, don't approach it as "there is no work". That's definitely not true. There are TONS of jobs out there. Approach it as "how can I change to better present what I can do" and "where do I need to improve". The former is saying "it is the job market's problem". The latter is saying "I need to change". The former comes across as arrogant. The latter comes across as humble.