What I Learn from Working in Small Startup as A Fresh Graduate
Hey , my name is Iman Syahputra Situmorang, a Fullstack Software Engineer in Bornevia. I just start working for 6 months. A valuable 6 months to learn what is the feel when working in a small Start Up . Well it will be a shocking news, about the closing of bornevia.com. But I will not telling anything about the reason of bornevia’s closing, I’m just telling what I learn from Bornevia when I work over there.
No Long Process at Interview
This is the reason why I like to apply at small start up. I don’t need to go for long process like in corporate company, or other big companies.
After my graduation, I got an offer from my Ex-Product Manager over LinkedIn, to be a FrontEnd Engineer at Bornevia. This what I don’t want to be work with, I’m an backend engineer, not a frontend. I hate to work with the user experience. So I ask for another position, and called for the interview. The test was easy, I think I’m a lucky man at that time. The front-end test is only about css and javascript skills, creating a responsive web. And also the backend test, only some logical test , writing a pseudo code in the whiteboard in front of The CTO and the Product Manager. After a long discussion, they offer me to be a FullStack Software Engineer.
Fast Learning Is A Must Required Skills
Being a Fullstack is not easy, especially when you just graduated, and you must ready when assigned to any task whatever it is, a front-end task, or a backend task. And also at that time I don’t have any experience in professionals career. I never use any technology over there. We had Rails, NodeJs, and Angular in bornevia.com. I was only a little familiar with NodeJs but not with others. Even Redis , I didn’t know at that time, so fool I am :D.
So the adventure begin, I start work from AngularJS. I got the pressure, I got the feel being pushed. When I didn’t know nothing about Angular, but I must work in team to improve the feature. So I learn anything about the Angular while finishing all my task. It’s really frustrating in the beginning.
Suggestion when you in my position : “Focus on Learning. Whatever happen in around you.”
I do. I learn every time, I admit that, I’m not genius enough to understand the technology within a weeks. So , I start learn. Taking course at any mooc is recommended like Udemy, CodeSchool, etc. Ask your senior is highly recommended too, not only make you understand about the systems, but also make a new friend in your office.
Work on a Small Teams, For Better Communications, For Bigger Challenges
In Bornevia, at my first month, we only have 4 engineer (Fullstack Software Engineer) include me as a Junior at the teams. At that month , If I was not wrong, we have up to 2000 clients using our services ( I don’t know exactly how many companies use Bornevia, but I heard from my senior it’s up to 2000).
Can you imagine, when you work at small team , but have a big responsibilities. So we separated by 2 teams at the time. 1 team focus on Devops , Infrastructure and Backend, and another team included me , focus on Frontend, and Backend .
Must Able to Change and Adapted for Every Changes
At some day, we have a small technical problem in our office, so it must to force us to work remotely. It happen in my second month.
At some point, I was so happy, because, I can work from home, when my other friend in another company must go to office daily. But in other hand, the challenges increased, we have many task more and more task.
It feels like the task increased twice from the normal. Also there was lack communication between team, especially between QA and Engineer. But whatever the task, if I can work from anywhere, it’s a big point for me :D .
Not only about the places, but any internal conflict in company also give you a little stress. It happens when my ex-product manager being fired by the company. I don’t know anything about the problem, but it will give you a little stress when know , even your manager got fired.
So , at that time, we work without any manager. It was a new challenges to us, because anything about the product must changed. Some development of the feature must stopped,changed with a new feature , etc.
New Business Model, New Task
At my fourth month, we released our new business model about training Customer Support with technology. It’s called Customerfirst project.
The blog page could be seen in customerfirst.id. I personally assigned here, to develop the blog and the landing page. Well, it’s not a big task. But also give a extra task for me, including my normal task.
Teammate Resigned Create Your Responsibility Increases
At my third month in Bornevia, one of my senior must resign from Bornevia, for a new opportunity. So with his resigned, we only 3 of engineer in Bornevia.
Even you are more comfortable with the company, but when one of your team must resign, you will feel more seriously about your responsibility. Any task could be assigned for him, must assigned to you, include your original task.
Entering a Danger Zone Mayday Mayday Mayday!!!!
It’s happen from my 4–5 month at Bornevia. We don’t have any task. No improvement feature. Just focus on fixing the bugs. We feel like Bornevia was currently stable and profitable. For 1 month or more, I don’t have any task.
But the reality happen, when our CTO said, we will close our services, and doing a some pivot because the operations cost and also some companies don’t want to use SaaS because of their privacy and others thing.
We will change from SaaS into On Premise systems, so we will install bornevia.com in client’s server. Also add some feature using IP-PBX, for call center.
We already doing collaboration with another company, that provide the IP-PBX. Doing prototyping and integrating the IP-PBX with bornevia.com
Bornevia is Shutting Down not Closing
At March 15 2017, our CTO, officially announce about the news to us, and we will closed at 30 April 2017 next month.
“ This is because the investors will carry out a liquidation of Bornevia’s assets”,
He said.
He took our resume, and recommend us to other companies. It’s really really shocking for me. I’ve never expect to be like this.
I just think it will just a pivot, or just closing the SaaS service, but I never expect the company also will shutting down.
Well, I just an employee, seeking for experience. Anything could happen in small Start Up Life.
Conclusions
Well, it’s a sad news, for me, and for other our clients about the shutting down of bornevia. But for me, it’s a huge experience, I have learn many thing from there.
If people said, working at small start up is fun, enjoyable, can remote working, yes of course.
But remember this,prepare for the worst.
If you are seeking for small start up jobs, you must know this, anything could happen in start up life.
If you looking for a challenges and great experiences, work on start up will be a great fit for you. I already there, and I feel it right.
Thank you… :)
Original Source: https://medium.com/surat-dari-iman/what-i-learn-from-working-in-a-small-start-up-as-a-fresh-graduate-2f6b1d74faba