New Roller Coasters

Unsurprisingly, my first day and a half of looking at actual SurveyMonkey code and trying to figure out how everything worked was a new roller coaster. It went something like this:

1. This is terrifying.
2. It's cool. It will just take a little while to get familiar with their code.
3. Look, curly braces and functions and stuff. I know how to do this. It's cool.
4. It's cool. There are only like 100 files that interact with each other and I have no idea how.
5. OH MY GOD there are like 100 files that interact with each other and I have no idea how!
6. What are all these weird functions that I've never heard of????
7. It's ok. We're just going to google some things and see what we can find out.
8. WHY DOESN'T GOOGLE KNOW WHAT THIS FUNCTION IS???
9. I thought I knew JavaScript, but clearly I don't.
10. I forgot how to computer!!
11. Ok, I will ask my mentor for some help.
12. Wait, you're telling me that a lot of this code is specific to the SurveyMonkey framework?
13. Wait, it would be super weird if I were able to figure this out on my own?
14. Wait, it takes all new people a while to learn the ins and outs of your MVC framework?
15. Oh, that's what that stands for? Oh, that's where that function is coming from?
16. Ok! I can maybe look at the code on my own and understand some things.
17. So what happens if I comment this out?
18. OMG IT RUNS!!!
19. Ok, so why doesn't this section work?
20. I am amazing. Look at me, coding and stuff.
21. WTF? Why doesn't this work?

The rest was mostly me narrowing in on what part of the code was throwing an error. And then I went home for the weekend. Want to hear something really shocking? At no point this week did I cry or feel like crying. There were times when I was a little panicked or felt kinda stupid, but I didn't have any breakdowns. It's not because I am a good enough programmer that I am past those breakdowns. It's that I have learned that this is hard and I am smart and I have resources. I'm sure there will still be breakdowns, but I don't anticipate them happening regularly anymore. 

Just like I felt at Hackbright, I feel like right now I am exactly where I am supposed to be. 

My First Week So Far

I can hardly put into words how happy I am to be at SurveyMonkey. Here are some reasons in no particular order:

• The people are super nice and I have yet to meet a brogrammer who works here. Everyone is approachable, humble, and helpful.
• They take the monkey theme to a level I am very comfortable with. On top of their employee directory, MonkeyBook, and the plethora of plush monkeys and plush bananas of various sizes stashed in every corner, they also named their conference rooms after fictional monkey characters such as Marcel (Friends) and Mr. Teeny (The Simpsons). Everyone's desk is labeled with a banana name tag, and in my case a "green banana" name tag because I am new (see photo below). But best of all, they name their projects after species of monkeys, such as Howler and Rhesus. 
• The project I'm working on is called Mandrill. I love mandrills. They are the most sexually dimorphic monkey, meaning that the males look very distinct from the females. But the most interesting fact about them, of course, is why their faces are so colorful, which I happily shared with my manager when he asked me what interesting facts I knew about mandrills.

• My mentor Sara is super awesome and amazing and fantastic. She has been checking in with me to make sure I'm not overwhelmed. It's even comforting just knowing that she is nearby, even if I'm not asking for help, because she is like my safety net.
• The project I'm working on seems interesting. I haven't written any code yet, just looked through documentation and specifications. But it seems like it will be doable maybe. Maybe. 
• I discovered the SurveyMonkey freezer. It is full of ice cream. Don't worry, I'm not stuffing myself with treats all day long.

My green banana name tag

Hopefully I can report more this weekend. I am trying to get into the actual code right now so I may or may not have something interesting to share on my next post.

My First Day at SurveyMonkey

Today is my first day as an engineer at SurveyMonkey! When I got to my desk, there was a laptop, monitor, magic mouse, phone, and welcome packet. They set me up with all the accounts I need and everything was super organized!

My manager David is really great. He explains things clearly and non-condescendingly. I'm going to be working on an internal tool that helps the company keep information up to date. Today I'm mostly reading through documentation and getting my development environment set up.

As for the office itself, the people here are really nice and there are stuffed monkeys everywhere, which is exciting to me. I saw a photo of a mandrill and David seemed surprised that I knew what it was called. So I guess I have exposed myself as a primate enthusiast. Also, my mentor Sara works about ten feet away, so that is awesome!

Other pluses: tons of really great snacks and treats, and lunch on Mon/Wed. Today was mediterranean food. Can't wait to get my monkey swag. Going to go figure out how to obtain that.

More soon, I hope!