I started at a technology company as an intern in a developing country and became a permanent junior developer after three months. I had only the fundamentals from my computer science degree, but a senior developer helped me learn React and Node.js, especially NestJS, and I became comfortable with the stack.
After becoming permanent, I was assigned to a production social media application built with microservices, an API gateway, Redis, real-time sockets, offline storage and synchronization, video processing, and a Facebook-like feature set. I'm working with a newer senior developer who usually gives brief, unclear requirements and expects me to figure everything out with AI. When I implement something, he sometimes says he wanted it done differently without having explained that beforehand.
When tasks take me too long, they're reassigned to other developers, and I feel increasingly sidelined. I'm also paid less than the other junior developers because I started as an intern. The codebase is difficult to understand and appears to contain a lot of AI-generated code, while I'm now being asked to help rebuild or refactor parts of the project despite still being inexperienced.
I'm worried that I'm no longer learning and that the situation is damaging my mental health. Should I stay while looking for another job, ask management to move me to another team, or resign and spend some time building a portfolio before applying elsewhere?
4 Answers
Try not to resign before you have another option unless your health or safety is at serious risk. Start applying quietly, keep building skills in small increments, and treat your current job as income and experience while you search. You don’t need a perfect portfolio to apply for junior roles; your production experience is already useful.
Being given a complex production system without reasonable guidance is a legitimate concern, especially for someone newly out of school. Document unclear requirements, missed deadlines caused by changing instructions, and risky requests. Ask for requirements in writing and confirm your understanding before starting. Then raise the pattern with a manager or project lead and ask whether you can transfer to a better-supported team.
There are two separate issues here: poor mentorship and your own responsibility to become productive. A senior developer is not automatically required to teach every concept, and using documentation, debugging tools, and AI carefully is part of modern development. However, unclear requirements, constant rework, and assigning high-risk changes to someone who doesn’t understand the system are management problems. Ask focused questions, break work into smaller deliverables, submit small changes for review, and make sure you understand code before accepting it from AI.
You may be able to improve the situation without immediately quitting. Request a specific one-on-one with your manager or HR, explain the problems factually, and ask for clearer acceptance criteria, code reviews, training time, or a team change. Avoid framing it only as a conflict with the senior developer. At the same time, update your resume and apply elsewhere. If the company dismisses the concerns or continues putting production at risk, leaving for a healthier team is reasonable.
I have tried asking other junior developers for help, but they are busy too. I’ll focus on presenting concrete examples to management and looking for another role rather than making an impulsive decision.
That makes sense. I’m worried that management will see me as the problem because I’m slower than the other developers, but I’ll start keeping a record of the requirements and changes instead of relying on verbal instructions.