This is a question I should have asked quite a while ago and is no longer relevant for my current situation, but I believe the answer still holds value. I hope this is not a problem !
Context
French start-up, software & web development, created about a year ago. 5 people were working there when I joined : an operational leader, a technical leader, two developers, and a graphist. Things are going quite OK but the balance of the team is still somewhat fragile. Everyone is pretty busy, pretty much all the time, as you could expect it in a start-up environment.
My role was to work on a project not related in any way to what the other developers were doing : different technologies, different organisation... I was supervised by the technical leader for this project, and we were the only two people on the project.
I just graduated from engineering school at the time, and had no previous professional experience, aside from internships. I was not especially proficient in the technologies involved by the project, and there was, as we discussed it during the interview, quite some challenge in it.
Situation
The first weeks went quite OK, the subject was interesting and there was a lot for me to learn. However, I started to notice that the technical leader had little to no time to answer my questions. It was OK at first because I was merely learning about the project, and getting started, but as things got more complex, I found myself in need for some technical advice since I was quite unexperienced and working on stuff that was new for me. But asking questions was somewhat difficult, because TL (Technical Leader) often (sort of involuntarily) seemed annoyed by my questions, sighing and looking unwilling to take time to help. I know it was more of a flow-breaking problem for him, and I understand it because he seemed to have a lot on his plate all the time, but it made me unwilling to ask for help (because it was unpleasant), and lead to a progressive loss of motivation.
After a little more than two months, they put an end to my probation period because they did not feel I was motivated enough, and although my technical ability was fine, my presence felt like an unbalancing factor for the team.
Question
I perfectly understand that recruitment is a difficult step for a young start-up, and choosing a newly graduated person was probably not the best choice for them. We took some time with TL to discuss it and came to a conclusion that there were management issues regarding the supervision of my work.
Still, I wonder if I could have done something to avoid this conclusion (which is me losing the job). I know losing my motivation altogether was not a very mature reaction, and I could probably have handled things better. It is to be noted that the lack of supervision from TL was a real problem that prevented me from being efficient, and couldn't be resolved only by searching stuff on the Internet (I know how to do that). Also, only TL could help on this.
To put it simply : what should have I done to handle this lack of supervision problem ?