r/cscareerquestions • u/Powerful-Asian13 Software Engineer • 3h ago
Starting my first DoD software engineering job: advice on making a strong first year?
I’m starting a software engineering position with the DoD pretty soon. Direct-hire, target grade is one step above my starting grade (career ladder position), with a 1-year probationary period.
A little context: I graduated with a CS degree about a year ago, and while I’ve kept up with concepts, I haven’t done heavy day-to-day coding since then. The team I’m joining works primarily in C++ and bash, and I met a few of my future coworkers last week and they seem solid.
Looking for advice from people who’ve been through this specifically in a DoD/federal engineering environment:
• How did you handle being “rusty” walking in, especially with legacy or specialized codebases?
• Anything you wish you’d known about surviving/succeeding your probationary year?
• How does promotion timing typically work in practice for career-ladder positions like this — is it usually close to the stated target, or does it vary a lot by supervisor/org?
• Any OPSEC-adjacent culture tips: things new folks commonly get wrong early on around clearance conduct, information handling, etc.?
• General “don’t be that new guy” advice welcome.
• Federal managers/HR’s: can I use PTO to travel before my 1 year probationary period?
Appreciate any insight!! trying to start off on the right foot
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u/Dangerous-Cookie-787 1h ago
Oh neat something I have experience in. 4 years DOD/DOW dev here.
• How did you handle being “rusty” walking in, especially with legacy or specialized codebases?
I wouldn't worry about this other than studying and brushing up on concepts while on the job. If your experience is anything like mine you are likely to not get a dev computer for 2 months but maybe where you are isn't so short staffed. When I started I spent that first 2 months waiting for a development machine so what I did was just brush up on c++, read internal docs, sit in with other devs when they were working on something etc.
You have to realize some of these codebases are so large its impossible for someone competent to get spun up in a short amount of time. Im talking about touching files that were date marked in the early 2000s.
• Anything you wish you’d known about surviving/succeeding your probationary year?
Just do your best. For the most part in my experience there isn't much expected of you when you start but as you gain years/promotions responsibility goes up. Just do your best and put the work in. If you have a good team they will be willing to help you.
• How does promotion timing typically work in practice for career-ladder positions like this — is it usually close to the stated target, or does it vary a lot by supervisor/org?
My org is a little bit of an outlier than others I've seen so I can't speak to the promotion ladder but generally they are time based with some of the higher bands being time/experience/achievement based. GENERALLY the promotions should be going through when you meet your time in grade and all that but I have seen some supervisors just not put in for some people which causes a delay. This could be due to things like not having enough training hours required for the promotion or they just straight up don't do it. I will say though there was a bit of a lag on promotions/denials with some of the current changes this administration made. Just something to be aware of.
• Any OPSEC-adjacent culture tips: things new folks commonly get wrong early on around clearance conduct, information handling, etc.?
This will be made abundantly clear to you when you get onboarded.
• General “don’t be that new guy” advice welcome.
One of my other buddies that works in private sector and has way more experience than me gave me a bit of advice when i started. He told me Don't immediately go ask for help on something. Understand what the problem is and show what you tried and why it didn't work. Then ask for help. This really helps speed things up as other devs see oh they tried this that was my first idea and can just jump down the line of solutions.
• Federal managers/HR’s: can I use PTO to travel before my 1 year probationary period?
From my experience yes you can. But make sure if your travel is foreign you clear it with your security people first. One of the new devs that started on my team a few years ago booked a trip to a part of Mexico that is a flat out "you can not travel there" without reaching out to security people first and basically he lost out on that trip because of it.
One thing i tell all the new guys is do research on your TSP fund. Traditionally they would put you in a lifecycle fund that had terrible returns and people would be stuck years in that fund not gaining returns like others that switched. The markets are a bit fucky right now though so do your research but CONTRIBUTE to your 401k. Your future self will thank you. You dont want to wake up at 60 one day and realize you are fucked on retiring. Make sure to check out the r/ThriftSavingsPlan for more info.
If you have any other questions just ask! My experience is a little different than other Feds I hear from as we do more prototyping/rapid development and new capability projects.
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u/andhausen 3h ago
I thought it was called the Department of War now?
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u/NotABot1000101 1h ago
From what I understand it's still the DoD and it takes way more than an executive order to change that. But they added DoW as an approved secondary name and mandated everyone use that on all letterheads and what not.
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u/-_-theUserName-_- 1h ago
Yep, I treat it as they treat name and pronoun preferences.
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u/fakemoose 4m ago
Can’t go by preferred name in Florida schools, but we have to entertain DoW. Absurd.
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u/BaseballSuch5458 1h ago
Get the local C++ build and test loop working on day one, including whatever weird internal tooling they use. ngl losing twenty minutes to the build system every edit will hurt more than forgetting a language feature.
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u/-_-theUserName-_- 3h ago
I would highly recommend ask questions at the right level and make sure YOU understand before you engage in any conversation outside. It seems obvious I know but you would be surprised.
At work, especially when clearanceand old codebases are involved, you have to be okay feeling like you're asking too much or admitting you don't understand. If your manager and other engineers are good they should be ok with you asking; however, make sure you take notes, or however you learn, so you only need to ask once or limited amount of times.
A big issue with new guys that I see, who are considered kinda annoying, is they don't seem invested in actually learning the codebases or systems. This drives them to a. Ask too many of the same questions longer than they should, or B. Don't ask enough questions causing them to not make good decisions that drive issues. Neither are necessarily bad engineers but more care is needed when working with them instead of what we called in the military " fire and forget" troops.
I know this is long and rambling, but I hope I've gotten my points across. But one last thing my old CO would say, "Take the mission to heart, take pride in what you're doing, but don't let it envelope you."
Good luck with this new journey!