Stage 2 · Lesson 8 of 8
Shipping your starter task
Most teams give a new joiner a small, low-risk first ticket, such as fixing a typo, a small bug or a missing test. This is really about walking the whole path once. You create a (your own copy of the code to change), make the change and run the tests.
Then you open a asking others to review it, get a review, it into the main code and see it deployed to users. Do it carefully. Ask about each step you have not seen before, and write the steps into your notes.
If no starter task appears by the end of week one, ask for one. Once the path feels familiar, every later ticket feels smaller, and you are ready for the stages on teamwork and pull requests.
Common trapturning a tiny ticket into a big (a rewrite of existing code) to impress, which delays it and worries reviewers.
A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 1 cheat sheet entry come when you add the roadmap to your account. Add it
Resources for this stage
Start with· follow one of these
- GuideFreeHow to Ask Good Questions (Julia Evans)
Julia Evans · Beginner
A fifteen-minute read that changes how you ask for help from day one
- BookPaidThe Missing README: A Guide for the New Software Engineer
Chris Riccomini and Dmitriy Ryaboy (No Starch Press) · Beginner · $29.99 print, $23.99 ebook
The chapters on getting to competence and working with code match these two weeks closely