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My First Job and the Biggest Challenge So Far

· 2 min read
Adrian Enßlin
Adrian Enßlin
Full-Stack & DevSecOps Engineer

January 2025. My first job as a developer.

F+S GmbH, a wholesale company in the natural stone industry. My task: Build a complete e-commerce shop. Alone. From scratch.

I barely had time to feel excited. Because right after came the fear.

I wasn't ready for this project. I knew that.

Not because I hadn't been learning, but because this was a completely different dimension. No practice project. No course. A real client with real expectations, real deadlines and real demands. Near-daily meetings. Decisions I had to make on my own.

Quitting was not an option.

What I learned in those 9 months can't be bought in any course. I learned what it means to truly need time management — not as a concept, but because without it nothing gets done. I learned what it means to rework an architecture more than 10 times because a project keeps growing and you can never lose the overview. I learned what it means to work hand in hand with a client — to understand their wishes, and sometimes to explain why something should be implemented differently.

And I realized: this is exactly what I enjoy.

First Canvas Planning of My Project​

Canvas Planning

In September my contract ended. The project was standing — even though there was much more still to come. I continue working for F+S as a freelancer to this day, pushing forward the wishes of my former employer.

Development of the F+S GmbH Homepage​

F+S GmbH

This job gave me more than any training program. Not because the training wasn't valuable — but because real-world experience speaks a different language.