Developer mindset thoughts N2: Be careful of the first impression

When starting a new job (as well in so many other areas of life), the first impression is crucial. It is what will form most of the opinion of your colleagues about you.

Here are, some key points to remember when starting a new job :

• Listen more, much more than you speak. Especially in the early days, in order to get the team dynamics and priorities.
• Keep an eye on the team culture, and adapt your style to fit smoothly.
• Be humble and approachable and accept negative feedbacks. No one expects you to know everything, and your job is to help your team in what they are already doing
• Respect your colleague's opinion and way of doing things, even if it's very different from yours. There is almost never, only one way of doing things.
• Communicate clearly, whether in emails or meetings. It's important to keep the communication concise and professional in order to not lose anyone's time
• Learn as much as you can about existing processes, whether in pull requests, meetings, issue tracking ... in order to be ready to contribute as quickly as possible
• If you get stuck somewhere, ask for help. It is completely fine. The mistake is to stay silent
• If there is something new you want to propose, keep it until the second month or later. The first month is for learning the processes and the culture of your team and to try to gain trust

Those are what I have in mind for now. Of course, this list is not exhaustive.