Why can't a programming job for a junior mean doing programming?

Question

I am a junior .NET developer with certifications (2 Microsoft including app dev foundation, 2 non Microsoft)* and I have had several programming jobs. They have all been in .NET development but some in different technologies (MS CRM, Sharepoint, etc).

Problem is, I keep getting employed into jobs where I am not actually programming but get bogged down into doing something which doesn't require skill like maintaining an Excel spreadsheet (basic formulae, conditional formatting, etc) and not doing C#/ASP.NET, or whatever.

Programming in my current job is difficult due to just production servers and not even any test servers and we need those to see if our code works as expected. It is like saying a company has made a new car and someone makes a modification for it but that person only has one of those cars to test it on, and it is intended to be sold to a customer, so he cannot test the modification on that car because it may break the car. So the part maker must know the modification works smoothly, but the only way to know this for sure is to test it on the car itself, which cannot be done as it is for sale.

*I only mention the certs to let you, the reader, know of the effort I have made to improve myself (that and many other practical things). If it wasn't for those practical activities I do to boost my skills, I would become rusty, no doubt.

Thanks

Answer 1

Programming is not just about programming, debugging.., redoing the same thing..

Most people tend to think, that if they do not code for almost 6 months they're gonna have to deal with relearning,.. but that's ain't true at all.

No good programmer becomes rusty unless he begins thinking so.

Answer 2

There's a missing question here: are you doing these other things exclusively? Or part time? And if part time, how much?

I teach baby engineers, and one of the things they often seem to imaine is that when they get a job, they'll be spending all their time "doing engineering", which is to say programming, or designing circuits, or designing bridges. Then they get the first job, and discover they're spending the majority of their time writing memos, and filling out spec sheets, and, yes, updating spreadsheets.

The reason is that engineering, real engineering, involves a lot of that stuff. If you ask your boss, it might turn out that the boss spends even less time "doing programming" than you do.

Now, if you're really doing no programming, then yeah, a job change might be in order. But first, look around the office: who's doing more programming than you are? Can you get that job?

Answer 3

You need to look for jobs differently, or something. When I first saw your headline I thought you would be complaining about being asked to do testing.

1. Ask during the interviews about whether or not the position is going to involve coding.
2. Do a side project, ideally something that at least looks like you could put it into production, so as to keep your skills up. This will also give you something better to talk about during interviews.

Answer 4

I'd suggest you need to work on your people skills. Office politics dictate a lot of this and somehow you have not impressed the people you work with as being able to do the higher level tasks. Perhaps you come across as arrogant and they are putting you in your place. Or maybe they just don't have confidence in you. Or maybe you are slacking off at the tasks you don't like, so they refuse to give you something more critical. (If you can't or won't do the easy tasks, why on earth would I trust you with anything harder?)

If this has happened to you more than once and it isn't the norm in the field (which it isn't), then something in your behavior is leading them to assign the worst jobs to you. While you may perceive that you are not far behind the senior devs, what is critical is how your boss perceives you in comparision to them not your perception.

Sit down with your boss and ask him what you need to do in order to progress to the more interesting tasks. Do it without attitude and humbly showing that you understand that the reason why you are not getting the work you want may be your fault and that you want to know how to improve so that you can get that kind of work.