eldobhatobugyi

I work as a junior backend developer at a company for about 1.5 years now, in the UK. In the beginning, everything was great, but as time goes on, I increasingly feel that I can't continue here. They assigned me to an ML project that I handle alone, developing from scratch, in an area and with technologies I have never used before which is Computer Vision. They provided a plan, a goal, and told me to work on it. I thought, great, at least I'll learn new things. However, this was good for a while, but after about six months, I reached a point where no matter how hard I try, I'm stuck, unable to overcome the problem. I asked for help, and the response was that they can't really assist me because there's no one in the company who understands what I'm working on. So, I got the answer to try to solve it on my own. So, I continued, meanwhile, they assigned me another project, a full-stack project to work on. In this project too, about 50% of the technologies are ones I've never used.

So, I'm working on two projects, almost entirely alone on one, and on the other, there are unrealistic expectations and very difficult tasks. I work 8-10 hours a day, sometimes I even forget to eat because I'm so nervous and stressed that I want to work non-stop to achieve goals.

The problem is that the senior developer said it's time for me to finish the project I'm working on alone because they want to sell it. And I'm like: what??? This whole situation seems quite absurd. After that, he said that if I don't finish it by the end of the year, I should throw the project in the trash because if I couldn't do the whole thing in this time, it's better not to. I couldn't believe my ears. How can they sell something which was developed by a junior developer alone, almost 90% of the product?

What do you think? What should I do? Should I take it to heart? According to several senior friends, it's time for me to find another job because they think I'm being exploited. My salary is also terribly low, and there's no bonus. However, I already feel that if I stay here any longer, I will come to hate programming. Any advice?

I work as a Junior Python Dev. at a company for over a year now, almost a year and a half, I'm based in UK, London. Since they hired me, I've been working alone on a project, an AI/Data Science project, using technologies I've never used before, in an area I've never worked on. I was given the task to develop it, with no specific deadline but to make progress.

I thought, okay, great, I'll have something new to learn. It was good for a while, it worked for a few months, and then they assigned me another project to work on. This another project is also full of new technologies I've never used before. So, I'm working on two projects, and I faced more and more challenges because, as I mentioned, many things were new and still are. I asked for help several times, but fundamentally, I never received help because, as it turned out, there's no one in the company who understands this specifically AI-related field. I found out later that they would like to sell this product (that I've been developing on my own) which to me is kind of insane since I'm just a junior and never did something like this before...

I always got the response to try to solve it on my own because they couldn't help. So, I tried to do it alone, lots of attempts, research, rewriting, testing, and I managed to complete about 90% of the project, but I got stuck. I don't know how to finish it, and I'm not getting any help. I feel like I'm starting to hate programming because of this. The worst part is that since I didn't finish it, since I got stuck, I was told to decide whether I can finish the app or not because if not, they have to let it go, and that would be quite bad... Is this normal or I'm just at the wrong company? Salary is also really low with no benefits, the only good "benefit" is that it is full remote.

I always hear that my performance is very good, my work is appreciated, and people enjoy working with me. However, because of these, I fear that they might part ways with me... although, as I think about it, maybe it would be for the best? Some senior developer friends of mine have told me that I shouldn't have accepted this job offer in the first place, but unfortunately, there were no other options at that time.