I recently got a new job offer. It is my first job ever if we do not count my internship. It is a full-time web developer position and I will start after 2-3 weeks.
Is it a good idea to ask my contact person in the company if there is any technology or framework that I should familiarize myself before I start my job?
Before I began my internship, the company had asked me to become familiar with several languages and frameworks. But this new company did not request such a thing. I thought it would be beneficial for me to do this because I will get up to speed faster.
Absolutely. I’m part of the hiring process for developers, and I would love to have a new hire shoot me an email asking what they can study up on before their first day. It shows excitement and initiative, and that only works in your favor.
I had a technical interview but there were several technical questions. I did not get any questions regarding any framework that they use. They questions were about more about the programming language(s) itself, not about libraries or frameworks.
However, if they give you the info and then you show up on the first day without any clue on these technologies, it may make a worse impression than if you hadn’t asked at all.
What if they don’t use any standardized library or framework systems? There are software shops in the universe that don’t trust “someone else’s” platform and insists on hand-rolling their own. Because NOT INVENTED HERE.
Hope this is not the situation you’re getting into here in the 21st Century.
ETA: I mean, it’s not fatal, but (A) you’re getting into a lot more messy work than you would otherwise, (B) you’re probably inheriting a lot of technical debt and longstanding WTFery, and (C) you may have to be careful of the politics of platform ownership: If it’s an internally-owned platform, that means it’s owned by an internal faction; and if it’s an important platform, the internal faction may be running power plays on that basis, meaning ugly political landscape.
Hopefully not. Or, alternately, perhaps an opportunity to improve the internal architecture by upgrading to an appropriate framework.
When I got my first real tech job, I asked the VP that hired me if I could have all the relevant manuals to read before I started a week later. He didn’t have them but he quickly found people that did and loaned them to me (this was before the web was much of a thing). I did read them even though I didn’t understand the relevance of a lot of it until I was actually doing the job. He told me a year or so later that type of initiative is fairly unusual and very impressive.
I wouldn’t pull all-nighters like you are going through college finals but it makes a good impression and will probably help you feel more at ease and be better able to ask intelligent questions when you finally start. It sounds like you have the background for the job already but every company is different and they may be using some technology or tool that you aren’t currently familiar with at all but could be with just a little preparation.