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just finished my master in Software Engineering and got a very nice job offer from the company I’d worked at part-time during my studies. I took the job as it was a sure thing. The thing is, this company sells more software then it builds. I'm just about the only developer they have in my country.

I was promised that I would be doing software development, but I've mostly done Powershell scripting. The perks are great pay, nice location, very nice lunch, extremely flexible hours (if I don't want to come into the office, I just put it in my calendar) and good health insurance.

So, I guess my question is, how important is it to get developing experience as a young developer? Am I spoiled and throwing away a great job?

I feel like I am missing out on working as part of a team, to talk about code, and general "real world" software development experience. My fear is that it will haunt me for the rest of my career that my first job was an IT Pro-ish job.

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    It should go without saying that working as a non-developer for a few years will not be as good for your development career as spending that time working as a developer. But it's ultimately your decision to make. "Haunt me for the rest of my career" would be a bit extreme unless it's something the average person would find offensive (like working for an extremist or hate group).
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Aug 16, 2017 at 9:54

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How important is it to get developing experience as a young developer ?

The developing experience is very important for every developer either you are young or old. This experience can be acquired at work but also at home. You can learn and practice alone at home. Find a fun project to code and do it.

What can I do for my work ?

You are in your first steps in a company, this is pretty normal to not jump directly in adding new features to their product. Usually you will receive small tasks to learn the environment.

Possibility A - You still not receive any coding task

You may be stuck with PowerShell scripting. In this case, you can go to your manager and discuss with him. Tell him in which direction you would like to go. Prepare yourself - He may ask you to still do PowerShell scripting.

If it is the case, ask yourself if you like working like this or if you want to quit.

Possibility B - You receive coding task

Good for you ! You like the work environment and now you also like the daily work.

Note

The experience you get while doing those scripts will never be lost/useless. Every experience is good to have.

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  • +1 for "You can learn and practice alone at home". Working on software is one of those few things that can be fun and relatively simple to work on from time to time at home. Making your own little project is a great alternative to this problem.
    – everyone
    Commented Aug 17, 2017 at 9:01
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Don't rush to judge the job based on how it is when you are just starting out, it's not unusual for it to take a while before you get some "real" development work to get your teeth in to and it's really not going to "haunt" the rest of your career.

Overall it sounds like it's a pretty good work environment (I'd have killed for my first post-university job to have been half as good as yours sounds, I scraped a living as a website salesman for a while and it didn't harm my development career any!) and while I wouldn't call you spoiled I do think you are at risk of falling prey to a case of "the grass is always greener" so my advice would be to stop worrying about what you feel you're "missing out on" and instead focus on what you've got and the opportunities and experience this role can give you.

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  • I agree and development experience can be gained outside of work easily enough, if you willing to invest the time.
    – Jeroen
    Commented Aug 16, 2017 at 9:44
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It is extremely beneficial to work on a development team where you can receive mentorship and learn good teamwork skills (working with others in a version control system, writing readable, reusable code, going through code reviews). The job you have sounds nice, but it won't help you grow and improve as a developer and get a better development job in the future.

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Am I spoiled and throwing away a great job?

It sounds like you have great benefits and at least a decent office culture. Your first gig out of college isn't lining up with your expectations, and that's okay. You (ideally) aren't going to be there forever. Were I in your shoes, I'd bring up these concerns with your immediate supervisor and base your next step on their response.

How important is it to get developing experience as a young developer?

In our industry, learning / getting experience is quite literally the most important thing you should be doing. If you aren't constantly learning, you're falling behind. That said, you can pretty easily find learning experiences anywhere now.

Find some open-source projects on GitHub that use a stack you're familiar with, check out their open issues, and start making pull requests.

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