M y First Week at Buka
Things I Learned When I Started Working at Bukalapak
Welcome to the first post of my #30DayWritingChallenge!
I see this article as a warm-up, a way to get my writing muscles going again after a long break from blogging. For the next 30 days, I’ll be writing about anything that comes to mind—no rules, no word counts, and definitely no pressure. Just pure, consistent writing practice.
Let’s get started with something close to heart: the things I learned when I first joined Bukalapak.
Vanilla JavaScript? Oh, You Mean Real JavaScript
Before joining Bukalapak, jQuery was my best friend. Need to manipulate the DOM? $('.my #awesome selector') had me covered. But here, I had to get used to writing plain, old-school JavaScript—no shortcuts, no sugarcoating.
Suddenly, document.querySelectorAll('.my #awesome selector') became part of my daily life.
Funny thing is, during the interview, I was asked to solve a problem using only JavaScript. I thought it was just an interview gimmick. Turns out, it’s part of the culture here—knowing your fundamentals matters.
Hello, Vue!
Vue was the frontend framework of choice at Bukalapak. Coming from an environment where I didn’t use any frontend frameworks, this was a whole new world for me.
Learning Vue opened my eyes to how much cleaner and more maintainable frontend code can be. It was challenging at first, but also exciting—like upgrading from a flip phone to a smartphone.
Git & GitHub: More Than Just Commands
I was introduced to Git at the end of my college years, around 2015. Back then, it was just a concept I didn’t really need to use. At my previous job, Git wasn’t even part of the workflow.
That changed fast at Bukalapak. Not only did I have to master Git commands like git pull, git push, and git status, but I also learned how GitHub workflows actually work in a team setting—branches, pull requests, code reviews, the whole nine yards.
Living the AGILE Life
I first heard about AGILE during a Software Engineering class in 2013. The concept sounded futuristic and kind of mysterious at the time. My lecturer mentioned it, but we never got to apply it in real projects.
At Bukalapak, AGILE wasn’t just a buzzword—it was our daily routine. I still remember my first sprint. When the PM asked me for story points, I stared blankly and thought, “Story what now?”
It took some getting used to, but being part of an AGILE team taught me how to work more collaboratively, communicate better, and break down complex work into manageable pieces.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading!
This post is part of the 30 Day Writing Challenge where I’ll be writing whatever sparks my curiosity or crosses my mind. Let’s see where this journey takes me.