My First Big Failure

This summer I was invited to participate in work on ███████.

The main task was to refresh the look and UI of the service, and to write an internal PDF document generator that would use the same layout and designs as the UI.

The project used Angular, which I hadn’t worked with before. This in itself might not have been a big problem if the project didn’t have a tight deadline. Because of the small amount of time, I wasn’t able to really “get into” the new technology and figure out how to use it properly.

Overestimating my knowledge, I agreed to the project and ended up spending a lot more time than I expected. Since the deadline couldn’t be pushed back, I had to work after hours to get the tasks we agreed on done.

We managed to deliver the work on time, but the quality of the code left much to be desired. It was my first serious failure and my first negative feedback about the work.

However, I learned a good lesson from this experience: do not take on tasks with a tight deadline and new technology. Especially if I will be working on the task alone, and there will be no one to ask for help or advice.