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A Day in the Life of a Software Engineer at a Startup
There are lots of common misconceptions about the daily activities of software engineers at tech startups. Popular culture has fed into stereotypes that coders spend whole days either quietly hunched over a laptop or wasting time drinking craft IPAs and fist-bumping each other over a game of Super Smash Bros.
In my experience, it was a little of column A, a little of column B, and a whole lot of not-at-all-like-that. Below, I’ve outlined a regular day in my life as a software engineer (when I was one, I’m a writer now). If you happen to be curious about what it’s like to really be a software engineer at a tech startup, read on.
~9:30–10 a.m.
Most people at tech startups tend to get to work sometime between nine a.m. and ten a.m., give or take an hour on either side. Most days, I would show up around 9:30 a.m. This gave me a chance to wake up a little in the morning before commuting to the office.
When I got to work, the first thing I did — before turning on my computer or checking Slack — was go to the kitchen. Every morning, there was a group of us who made coffee and talked. Sometimes we caught each other up on what projects we were working on, and other times we just talked about what fun plans we had for the upcoming weekend.
After I made my coffee and breakfast, I would finally go back to my desk and start getting into work mode. This process involved checking my email and Slack, reading the news, and doing code reviews (reviewing and approving code changes from coworkers). Once I was done eating, I was ready to get to work.
10 a.m.-12 p.m.
The two hours between ten a.m. and twelve p.m. are when I would get my best work done.
During this time block, I liked to sit at my desk with my over-the-ear headphones on, mute Slack, and focus. That’s the most energized time of the day for my brain, so it worked well to do more analytical work, like solving complex problems that required time-consuming thinking.
