Stressed out: 5th week as an Encora Spark
This week was a bit chaotic, the deadline to deliver the assigned project was on Tuesday and on Monday it was still not finished. I had some problems because I didn’t know the technologies properly and unexpected errors like the Cross Origin error when connecting the backend with the frontend and making requests.
I had to do a lot of research about this and other things where I was getting bugs that I didn’t expect to happen. When I started the project I thought the easiest part would be the frontend because I already knew React and TypeScript, however, as the deadline approached I realized how wrong I was.
I had never made connection with the backend, so I had to research how to do it and even though I implemented it and the project worked correctly, I was not happy with the result.
After finishing the project my mentor gave me some feedback, quite useful and confirmed what I already knew, the front end implementation was quite poor, it lacked to organize the functionalities of the application to implement a good architecture and have clean code. He also told me some things that I felt I did well, like the naming, the commit messages and the use of certain features.
Although it was a bit hard feedback, it was quite useful, it is better to get hard feedback and improve the things we think we were doing right than to get soft feedback and keep doing what we do even if it is wrong. When I finished the project I felt I had done it really well, I liked the interface, the design and even though the code was not very clean, I felt it was ok, however when I received the feedback it was like a bucket of cold water because I literally felt I had done everything wrong, but I am sure that this way I can improve in all aspects and do it better next time.
The day of the demo came and despite not being nervous before, at the time of the presentation I didn’t feel it as fluid as when I had practiced, but I think it went well, I received good comments about the project and that motivated me a little. In the demo presentation I also saw the presentations of some colleagues and it was interesting to hear how they approached the project and the functionalities they implemented.
Finally after some stressful days learning new technologies and correcting errors, I could rest. Friday came and with it an activity called Newbie Friday where I could learn more about the people joining Encora and have a nice time meeting more people.
Btw, admire the great design that the UX team did for the activity, it looked amazing.
This week I learned so much through the project, the feedback and from my peers, I definitely think it is something that will help me not only in the next projects, but in learning more about other technologies and expanding the knowledge of what I already know. As well as questioning what I know and if I am really doing it right. I also learned that it is very important to communicate and clarify all doubts in time to improve the quality of the project. As well as to develop as soon as possible to deliver with quality and improve as much as possible.
