I'm a young fresh graduated software engineer, I have started at my first position 5 months ago (once I graduated as a Software Development Engineer, basically a Java EE developer).
I am getting more and more bored, the job is about taking bugs tickets and fixing them. I haven't written a new Java Class since I work here and barely even written any new method, just some very small pieces of code to fix the bugs, which usually takes a few hours / up to a few days to find where the problem is and only between 10 minutes and 2 hours to fix.
That makes me bored and more and more frustrated, however there are some "projects" (addition to the current software) that are running each release but not all people are assigned to it. I feel like I lost the confidence of my team leader (maybe I don't perform as well as I expected, though I think that I am doing a decent job for a fresh graduate but also I could probably do better if I was motivated in my job), and that's also why I am not assigned to them: vicious circle.
What I am satisfied by:
- The process are well organized and gives good habits: continuous integration, some code review, skilled workmates.
- Salary is pretty decent, actually lower than the local ones but the standards of the country are very high in term of wage.
- Location.
- Work time (time of the employee is respected, if we do 1 minute overtime, we can take is as holidays another day later).
What I'm dissatisfied by:
- Strict company: There is "locked schedule". They pretend to be flexible but we can't come after 8:30 am and leave before 4 pm. Sometimes I come at 8:31 or 8:32 and even though this has zero impact in the job, I know that it bothers my team leader (who has as habit to come pretty early in the morning). The proxy blocks everything, spotify is not accessible for example (small issue) but we can't download any software from web (which can sometimes be useful to do the job). We have to make a request every time we want something (for example DB access) which takes from 24 to 48 h etc.
- My tasks (as said above, only fixing bug).
Important considerations:
- Leaving my job now could be bad for my future job hunting as I have no experience of more than 6 months (only internships, so it is normal, I did not get fired) and interviewer may thinks I am not reliable.
- I want to stay in this country (I am a citizen so there is no visa issue, but I am dual citizen and didn't grow up there).
- I am not really confident in finding a new job, my studies are not focused on solving algorithm problems (that's not a standard in my home country) but here it is one (I trained using leetcode but I am still far from being very skilled in that).
Due to my current job and the fact that I am a fresh graduate, I am starting to think that I am not made for that job and that I had expectations that are not how real world of software development works.
What should I do? Quit my job now but being in trouble to find a new position here? Stay but be bored?
The best compromise I see is trying to handle the job for about one more year without getting fired because of too low motivation so it will give me an experience that counts on my CV and gets me out of the "fresh graduate" category and then find a new job. In my opinion leaving now is not viable as I will have no money to live, will have to go back to my parents home and home country etc etc.