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🔓 Topic 2 · Free Preview
How to Handle My First Task?
ConfluenceGitHubAzure DevOpsLocal Setup
📖 Topic Content

How to Handle My First Task?

Every IT fresher faces the same moment — your manager assigns a task and mentions three tools you've never touched: Confluence, GitHub, and Azure DevOps. Understanding these tools from Day 1 means you spend less time confused and more time contributing. You build trust faster, communicate better, and complete tasks without needing to ask basic questions twice. This is the skill that separates a confident fresher from a lost one.

🏢 First Task at Work — Survival Guide

Confluence, GitHub & Azure DevOps —
Your First Task, Step by Step

Your manager just assigned your first task. You open your laptop and see three tools you've never used: Confluence, GitHub, and Azure DevOps. Don't panic. This guide explains what each tool is, why companies use them, and exactly what you do with each one.

📘 Confluence 🐙 GitHub 🔷 Azure DevOps ✅ First Task Flow 💬 How to Ask for Help
😅
Your Exact Situation Right Now
Manager says: "Your first task is in the ADO board. Read the Confluence page for requirements and raise a PR on GitHub when done." You nod, go back to your desk, and quietly Google "what is ADO board". That is completely normal. Every single fresher has this moment. Let's fix it permanently — right now.
📘
Confluence
The company's brain — all documentation, requirements, processes live here
🐙
GitHub
Where all code lives — version control, collaboration, code reviews
🔷
Azure DevOps
Your task manager — tracks what to do, who's doing it, and progress
These three tools work as a team — each has one job:
📘 Confluence
Read requirements
🔷 ADO Board
Pick up your task
🐙 GitHub
Write & submit code
🔷 ADO Board
Update task to Done
✅ Task Complete!
One sentence: Confluence tells you what to build. ADO tells you which task to do next. GitHub is where you build it.
📘
Part 1 — Confluence: The Company's Brain
Read First
Confluence is a documentation tool made by Atlassian. Think of it as a Wikipedia that your company writes and maintains itself. Every requirement, design decision, process guide, meeting note, and architecture diagram lives in Confluence. Before writing a single line of code, you read Confluence first.
📚
Real-World Analogy
Confluence is like your company's recipe book. Before you cook a dish (write code), you read the recipe (Confluence page) to understand: what ingredients (tech stack), what steps (requirements), what the final dish should look like (acceptance criteria). Skipping Confluence = cooking without a recipe = wasting everyone's time.
Data Engineering → Projects → Cars ETL → Requirements
🚗 Cars ETL Pipeline — Requirements
Created by: Ravi Kumar  |  Last updated: 2 days ago  |  Status: ACTIVE
📋 Overview
Daily ETL pipeline to ingest raw car data from S3, clean it through Bronze/Silver/Gold layers, and make it available for the BI dashboard by 7 AM IST.
🎯 Acceptance Criteria
✅ Bronze layer ingests raw CSV to Parquet
✅ Silver removes nulls, deduplicates on car_id
✅ Gold aggregates by brand, year, avg_price
✅ Pipeline completes before 6:30 AM daily
✅ Unit tests pass with >80% coverage
🔧 Tech Stack
Python 3.11 AWS Glue Airflow 2.8 S3 Terraform
📌 Related Links
ADO Board: Sprint 12  |  GitHub Repo: cars-etl-pipeline  |  Architecture Diagram
When you open a Confluence page for your task, look for these sections:
  • 🎯
    Acceptance Criteria / Definition of Done
    The exact conditions your code must satisfy for the task to be considered complete. This is your target. If you don't understand one of these points — ask before coding, not after.
  • 🔧
    Tech Stack / Architecture
    What language, frameworks, and services to use. Never use a tool that's not listed here without asking — companies have licensing, security, and compatibility reasons for their choices.
  • 📌
    Related Links
    Links to the GitHub repo, ADO board, other Confluence pages. Follow all these links — they give you context that the page itself doesn't repeat.
  • 💬
    Comments section at the bottom
    Check comments — previous decisions and answers are often buried here. If you have a question, search comments first. If not answered, add your question as a comment — it's visible to the whole team.
✅ DO in Confluence
Read the entire page before touching code
Check when the page was last updated — outdated pages may have wrong info
Add your questions as comments — keeps a record
Update the page if you find wrong information
Bookmark the page for quick access
❌ AVOID in Confluence
Starting code without reading requirements first
Trusting a page that was last updated 6+ months ago without verifying
Asking your manager questions that are already answered on the page
Ignoring the related links section
🎯 "Confluence = your task's blueprint. Read it fully before writing one line of code. Questions? Add a comment — never guess."
💼 Why companies use Confluence
Single source of truth New joiners onboard faster Decisions are documented No repeated explanations
🔷
Part 2 — Azure DevOps Board: Your Task Manager
Pick Your Task
Azure DevOps (ADO) is Microsoft's project management platform. The Board is the Kanban/Sprint board where tasks (called Work Items) are tracked. Your manager creates tasks here, assigns them to you, and you move them through columns as you progress. This is how the entire team knows what you're working on.
📌
Real-World Analogy
ADO Board is like a physical whiteboard with sticky notes — except it's digital and everyone can see it. Each sticky note is a task. Columns are: To Do → In Progress → In Review → Done. You pick your sticky note, move it to "In Progress", and when done move it to "Done". The board is the team's shared truth about who is doing what.
📋 TO DO
#1042
Build Bronze Glue Job
Feature You →
#1043
Write unit tests for Silver layer
Testing
⚡ IN PROGRESS
#1039
Set up Airflow DAG
Feature
👀 IN REVIEW
#1036
Terraform — Glue IAM role
PR Open
✅ DONE
#1031
Create S3 bucket structure
Merged
Key terms you'll see in ADO — demystified:
  • 📌
    Work Item / Ticket / Task — all mean the same thing
    A single unit of work assigned to you. Has a title, description, acceptance criteria, priority, and assignee. Your manager assigns these to you. Each has a unique ID like #1042.
  • 🏃
    Sprint — a time-boxed work period (usually 2 weeks)
    Your team works in 2-week cycles called Sprints. At the start of each Sprint, tasks are planned. At the end, completed work is reviewed. Your first Sprint goal: complete at least 1 task end-to-end.
  • 🏅
    Story Points — effort estimate, not hours
    Numbers like 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 estimate task complexity. 1 = trivial, 8 = complex, multi-day work. Don't worry about this as a fresher — your manager sets these. Just focus on completing the task.
  • 🔗
    Linking your PR to your ADO task
    When you raise a GitHub Pull Request, mention the ADO task ID in your PR description: "Fixes #1042" or "AB#1042". This automatically links your code to your task — your manager can see your PR from inside the ADO ticket.
Exact steps — how to handle a task in ADO:
1
Open the Board — find your assigned task
Go to ADO → Boards → Board. Tasks with your name are yours. Click the task card to open it fully.
2
Read the full task description + acceptance criteria
Every task has a description and a "Definition of Done" section. Read both completely. The Confluence link is usually inside the task description.
3
Move the task to "In Progress"
Drag the card from To Do → In Progress. This signals to your entire team that you have started. Don't forget this — your manager watches the board in standup.
4
Add comments to the task as you progress
Example: "Started working. Confluence page read. Creating feature branch on GitHub." This shows your manager you're active — even if they never ask. Visibility = trust.
5
After raising a PR on GitHub — move task to "In Review"
Add your PR link as a comment in the ADO task. Move the card to In Review. Tag your reviewer in the ADO comment: "PR raised. @Ravi please review when free."
6
After PR is merged — move task to "Done"
Once your code is merged to main, move the card to Done. Add a final comment: "PR merged. Task complete." This closes the loop professionally.
🎯 "ADO Board = your public commitment board. Move cards when you start, comment as you progress, close when done. Managers trust developers who keep the board updated."
🐙
Part 3 — GitHub: Where Your Code Lives
Write & Submit Code
GitHub is where your team's code is stored and collaborated on. You never write code directly on the main branch. Instead: you create your own branch, write code, push it, and raise a Pull Request (PR) for a senior developer to review before it gets merged into main. This protects the production codebase.
📋
Real-World Analogy
Imagine a shared Google Doc that 10 people are editing. If everyone edits the same document simultaneously — chaos. GitHub solves this: each person gets their own copy (branch), edits it, then proposes their changes (PR). A reviewer checks it, and only then does it get added to the main document. No chaos. Full history. Total control.
# How branches look — your task lives on a feature branch
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
← Your PR merged here
main branch (production)
feature/1042-bronze-glue-job ← YOUR branch
Initial bronze_layer.py
Add error handling
Add unit tests
PR raised → code review → merged ✅
The exact Git commands for your first task — step by step:
 
 
 
Terminal / Git Bash GIT
# ── STEP 1: Clone the repo to your laptop (do this only once) ─────
git clone https://github.com/your-company/cars-etl-pipeline.git
cd cars-etl-pipeline

# ── STEP 2: Always pull latest main before creating your branch ───
# This ensures you start from the most up-to-date code
git checkout main
git pull origin main

# ── STEP 3: Create your feature branch ───────────────────────────
# Naming convention: feature/{ADO-ticket-id}-{short-description}
# This links your branch directly to the ADO task
git checkout -b feature/1042-bronze-glue-job

# ── STEP 4: Write your code ───────────────────────────────────────
# Create your files, write the feature, run tests locally
# Example: create the bronze layer Glue job script

# ── STEP 5: Check what files you changed ─────────────────────────
git status
# Shows: modified files in red (not staged) and green (staged)

# ── STEP 6: Stage your changes ───────────────────────────────────
git add glue_jobs/bronze_layer.py      # stage specific file
git add tests/test_bronze_layer.py     # stage test file too
# OR stage everything at once:
git add .

# ── STEP 7: Commit with a meaningful message ──────────────────────
# Good commit message = what you did + why (not how)
git commit -m "feat: add Bronze Glue job for CSV to Parquet ingestion

- Reads raw cars CSV from S3 raw/ prefix
- Converts to Parquet and writes to S3 bronze/ prefix
- Adds data type casting for price and year columns
- Fixes: ADO#1042"

# ── STEP 8: Push your branch to GitHub ───────────────────────────
git push origin feature/1042-bronze-glue-job

# ── STEP 9: Raise a Pull Request on GitHub website ───────────────
# Go to GitHub → your repo → you'll see a banner:
# "feature/1042-bronze-glue-job had recent pushes — Compare & pull request"
# Click it, fill in the PR template, assign a reviewer, submit
How to write a good Pull Request description (copy this template):
 
 
 
GitHub PR Description Template MARKDOWN
## What does this PR do?
Adds the Bronze layer Glue job that ingests raw cars CSV from S3
and converts it to Parquet format in the bronze/ S3 prefix.

## ADO Ticket
Fixes AB#1042

## Changes Made
- Created `glue_jobs/bronze_layer.py` — PySpark script for ingestion
- Added `tests/test_bronze_layer.py` — unit tests (85% coverage)
- Updated `dags/cars_etl.py` — added bronze task to Airflow DAG

## How to Test
1. Run `pytest tests/test_bronze_layer.py` — all tests should pass
2. Check S3 bronze/ prefix for Parquet output after running

## Screenshots / Evidence
[Attach screenshot of successful local run or test output]

## Checklist
- [x] Code follows team style guide
- [x] Unit tests written and passing
- [x] No hardcoded credentials or secrets
- [x] Confluence page updated if requirements changed
🔴 What is a Code Review?
After you raise a PR, a senior developer reads your code and leaves comments. They may ask you to change something. This is normal and expected. Don't take it personally — every developer gets review comments. Respond with: "Good point, updated in latest commit."
✅ What is "Merge"?
Once the reviewer approves your PR, they (or you) click "Merge". Your code becomes part of main — the production codebase. Only then is your task truly done. A PR sitting unreviewed for days is a blocked task — follow up politely after 24 hours.
✅ Good Git Habits
Branch name includes ADO ticket ID
Commit messages explain what and why
Pull latest main before starting
Small, focused commits — not 50 files in 1
PR description is clear and complete
❌ Never Do These
Commit passwords, API keys, or .env files
Push directly to main branch
Commit message: "fixed stuff" or "changes"
Force push (git push -f) without asking
Let a PR sit for 3+ days without follow-up
🎯 "Branch → Code → Commit → Push → PR → Review → Merge. This 7-step loop is how every developer at every company ships code."
🔗
Putting It All Together — Your First Task, Start to Finish
Complete Workflow
🎯
Your first task scenario
Manager says: "Task #1042 is yours — build the Bronze Glue Job. Read the Confluence page, raise a PR when done." Here is exactly what you do, minute by minute:
1
📘 Open Confluence — read the requirements page (20 mins)
Search for the Confluence page linked in your ADO task. Read every section. Write down any questions you have — don't ask yet. Finish reading first, then ask.
2
🔷 Open ADO — read task #1042 in full (10 mins)
Open the ticket. Read description, acceptance criteria, attached files. Move card to In Progress. Add comment: "Started. Reading Confluence page and setting up branch."
3
🐙 GitHub — create your feature branch
git checkout maingit pull origin maingit checkout -b feature/1042-bronze-glue-job. You're ready to code.
4
💻 Write your code — following the Confluence requirements
Use the tech stack specified in Confluence. Match the acceptance criteria. If you hit a blocker for more than 30 minutes — ask your buddy. Don't suffer in silence for 3 hours.
5
🧪 Test your code locally before pushing
Run your tests. If the task says "80% coverage" — check coverage. Never push code you haven't run locally. "It works on my machine" is not good enough — test it.
6
🐙 GitHub — commit, push, raise PR
git add .git commit -m "feat: bronze glue job (ADO#1042)"git push origin feature/1042-bronze-glue-job → Go to GitHub → Click "Compare & pull request" → Fill PR template → Assign reviewer → Submit.
7
🔷 ADO — update task to "In Review"
Move card to In Review. Paste your PR link as a comment in the ADO ticket: "PR raised: [link]. Awaiting review from @Ravi."
8
🔄 Respond to review comments & fix
Reviewer leaves comments. Fix them. Push new commits to the same branch — the PR auto-updates. Reply to each comment: "Fixed in latest commit — [what you changed]."
9
✅ PR merged — move ADO task to "Done"
Code is merged. Move card to Done in ADO. Add final comment: "PR merged. Task complete. Bronze layer live on main." Tell your manager in standup: "#1042 is done, PR merged."
🙋
How to Ask for Help Without Looking Clueless
Communication
As a fresher, you will get stuck — guaranteed. The difference between a good fresher and a great one is how they ask for help. Follow this rule before asking anyone anything:
🔍
The 30-minute rule
Before asking a human: spend 30 minutes trying to solve it yourself — Google, read Confluence, check GitHub history, read error messages carefully. After 30 minutes of genuine effort, asking is not just OK — it's the professional thing to do. Staying stuck silently for 3 hours is the mistake.
The exact format for asking for help (use this every time):
 
 
 
Slack / Teams message to colleague TEMPLATE
Hi [Name], quick question on task #1042 — can I get 5 minutes?

What I'm trying to do:
Connect the Airflow DAG to the Glue Job using GlueJobOperator.

What I've tried:
1. Read the Confluence page on Airflow setup
2. Checked the existing sales_pipeline.py DAG for reference
3. Googled the error — found a similar Stack Overflow question
   but the answer didn't resolve my issue

The error I'm getting:
  AirflowException: GlueJobOperator: Glue Job failed with status FAILED.
  Error: No module named 'awsglue'

My current code is here:
  Branch: feature/1042-bronze-glue-job
  File: dags/cars_etl.py, line 47

Is this a missing dependency in the Glue job config?
This message shows: you tried before asking (respect for their time), you know exactly what's wrong (not vague), you have a hypothesis (shows thinking). 95% of colleagues respond warmly to this format.
✅ First Task Completion Checklist
Read the Confluence page for my task in full
Opened ADO task, moved it to "In Progress"
Created feature branch with ADO ticket ID in name
Code written, runs locally, tests pass
No secrets or credentials committed to Git
PR raised with clear description and reviewer assigned
PR link added as comment in ADO task
ADO task moved to "In Review"
Responded to all review comments within 24 hours
PR merged → ADO task moved to "Done"
Mentioned task completion in standup
💼 These three tools appear in every IT job — master them once, use forever
Data Engineer Python Developer DevOps Engineer ML Engineer QA Engineer Any IT role worldwide
🚀
You Now Know What 90% of Freshers Don't on Day 1
Confluence → ADO → GitHub → PR → Merge. This loop runs thousands of times per day at every tech company in the world. You now understand why each tool exists, what you do with it, and in what order. Your first task just got a lot less scary.
"The first task is always the hardest. The second one is easier. By the tenth, this flow is muscle memory."
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