I'm the .1x programmer at my company. How can I best contribute?

Posted by invaliduser on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by invaliduser
Published on 2012-05-13T20:04:30Z Indexed on 2012/09/21 3:50 UTC
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I work at a newly-minted startup of five people. We have a Ph. D in machine learning, a former member of the RSpec core team, and the guy who compiles the Git binary for OS X. That's just the employees; the founder has a Ph. D and was CTO for a multi-billion-dollar corporation before leaving to start a (successful) startup, and has now left that to start this one. We also might get a guy with a Ph. D in math.

Aaaaaaaaand then there's me, college-dropout intern. I think I'm pretty smart and I'm reading non-stop, but the delta of experience, skill, and knowledge between me and my co-workers is just breathtaking.

So put yourself in their shoes: you've got a bright young intern who has a lot to learn but is at least energetic. What would be annoying? What use would you hope to get out of him in the here and now? What would be pleasantly surprising if it happened?

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