How to move forward after getting laid off

Hi!

So last month I got laid off from my first job as a frontend developer after working at a small company for 5months. Ive been coding for about 2years now and my job was to replace a senior developer as the only frontend developer in the company so it felt from day 1 that I had a huge mountain to climb.

It went fine in the begining I guess but after some months they noticed I was not delivering quality code and it took me a bit longer to solve some problems since I was still a junior. I talked to my supervisor and they basicly said that I could use them as refrence on my resumee but that I would have to be let go because of this.

Now my question is how do I move on from here? I feel really down about this because I liked the work I did. I still really enjoy coding but im affraid of what question can arise at job interviews in the future(if I even get some…).

I guess I should only apply for jobs that can assure that they can take on a junior and have someone mentor me, will be working on my own projects in while looking for jobs.

/Thanks

to bad for this situation Dizzy. but it happens, and maybe good things come from it, for you.

while applying you say to HR that you took ur previous job cause the company thought a junior could do the job. but, after a few months, you + company found out that it was not the perfect deal and a senior was required. so, its not ur fault. its just not a match. You can even tell them what you learned here: that a mentor in place (a senior at work) is really important and that you value learning over wage. ur a junior, eager, young fresh blood and you wanna learn and grow and ur so damn interested in their bullshit stack, no matter what it is.

now they know: this guy is eager to learn! the wage dont matter. they offer you job with normal wage. great. you take it. they offer you wage with low wage: you take it, but not a full-work-week, cause you need a lot of time applying for other jobs now. Cause, in this last case, the only value this company gave you is the working-situation, which is of great value to get another job (with normal wage).

anyways, good luck, and keep learning

1 Like

You did a Senior role with the skills of a Junior,
no need to be ashamed.

Business mostly is not about you as a person, only you as a value provider.
You are not a bad person because you failed.

They expected you to bring a Senior’s value, but you didn’t,
because you are a Junior.

Go ahead and level up your skills.

2 Likes

You’ve been working as a dev for 5 months, you were placed into a role you weren’t prepared for but they’re giving you a reference. You should be fine. You will be asked why you left, and you can be completely clear that you were given a senior role when you weren’t ready for it and are looking for a more junior role to gain more experience.

Be prepared to answer you how you classify senior though: if there was only one frontend dev, how could they be senior (senior is a relative term, you need at least two people)? And leading in from that, how you were hired: if it was to replace someone highly experienced and skilled, was it simply an issue with their hiring process or not?

This is kinda realistic. You should be able to tell from the job description and the expected prior experience. You couldn’t really demand anything like that in an interview: a company will want someone who can learn quickly and do work, the junior/mid/senior delimitations made within a company are absolutely arbitrary. They normally can’t guarantee unless it’s a large company with a career path (which is unlikely in of itself for devs). You have already been thrown in at the deep end, and you really have to be prepared for it to happen again (maybe not to the same extent, but still…)

This is not realistic at all. Everyone says that they do this (and a few do come through on that promise!), but it’s generally not something that can be guaranteed