Surviving as a Junior Developer in a Company Without Seniors (1)

Since July, I’ve been working as a frontend (React Native) developer at a company. I joined under good conditions, drawn by a niche market domain and a recommendation from an acquaintance, fully aware that it was a company without seniors.

Most people might think of a new hire joining a company without a mentor, but I joined a company without any seniors at all. I need to quickly understand the domain knowledge and translate it into iOS and Android apps.

The domain knowledge I need to grasp is beyond imagination. Due to the nature of the company’s work, it covers the entire medical/pharmaceutical industry, managing hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, and sales representatives. There are over five industries involved. The app I’m developing is used by over 1,000 people. It’s an app that their livelihoods depend on. Transactions range from a few million won to tens of billions.

In such a specialized domain, at a company transitioning in-house without seniors, I’ve been working for about a month. And I keep getting overwhelmed. (…)

Even in a company without seniors

There are conference materials(!). Along with Toss’s adoption of the React Native engine, I’ve been gradually incorporating materials from Baemin’s app and other startups’ React Native resources. Although they didn’t resonate much, Toss’s case was explained with a focus on bundling optimization, and other presentations were abstract, so they weren’t very helpful.

Nonetheless, knowing that the problem I’m trying to solve is a common one and that other startups have solved it gives me the confidence that I can solve it too.

Even without seniors, there is a senior(?) freelancer. There’s someone who helps with our company’s work while working for another company, and he’s practically a senior. He has migrated most of the PHP functions to a Java-based API and replaced most of the screens with Vue. Without him, React Native development would have been fundamentally impossible. I ask him questions whenever there’s an unknown API. Since he worked alone, there are no basic documents, so there’s no handover process.

So, I’m reverse engineering by looking at previous code. Studying security has been a great help in these situations, but it’s frustrating to the point where I can’t tell if I’m solving a CTF problem or doing company work. It’s really boiling inside, and I wonder why I said I’d finish this in two months, causing this mess. (The bigger issue is that I actually finished it all.) But now that they’re asking to refine the design as well, I’ve realized that I need to consider both functionality and design and allocate ample time.

There’s no system. No seniors. Culture? None. Benefits, of course, none. There’s nothing. If I survive here, I think I’ll develop the adaptability to quickly adjust anywhere. (At least the salary isn’t delayed. It’s a company that earns well.)

A company that doesn’t take investment

The company transitioned in-house a few months ago and is reluctant to invest in technology, which I believe is due to the inherent limitations of a cost-saving industry.¹ They recently declined an investment from a well-known VC. The reason was equity sharing. I was quite shocked when they referred to VCs as “loan sharks” and viewed them negatively. Until then, I believed it was good to receive investments, but they had a completely different perspective. Upon reflection, it seems like growing without investment is the right way to do business. After all, Samsung and Hyundai grew without investments.

Perhaps that’s why there are no seniors in the company. Maybe the CEO’s mindset of not taking investments is my future too. I’m also preparing to become an entrepreneur someday, so I’m learning a lot.

As a result, technical debt is piling up

From my background in studying security, there’s a saying that comes to mind. “There are only two types of companies in the world: those that have been hacked and those that don’t know they’ve been hacked.” It’s too shocking to say, but the company’s system is more vulnerable than imagined. (This is one reason I can’t mention the company’s name.)

Having outsourced development on a page-by-page basis, the backend code is a mess. The CEO seems aware but doesn’t grasp the seriousness. The senior-cum-freelancer developer has mentioned security issues several times, but the response is always “we’re busy right now.” If this issue is postponed repeatedly, the company might really collapse.

Before I joined, they were using basic wifi with iptime without a password, which says it all. So, I set up a password when I had time, and the CEO was pleased, saying it was “something that needed to be done eventually.”

1 It’s difficult to discuss the specific business, but it’s a business that reduces expenses for pharmaceutical companies.