> 1. I feel I handled this wrongly, and started with too much confidence. If I am the least knowledgeable person, and a co-worker ignores, despises and almost makes fun of me for your lack of experience, how should I act in order to maintain my dignity but also be humble enough to acknowledge the co-worker's knowledge?
It sounds like you're in the same situation as the so-called "rockstar developers" once were. It's sort of like the perpetual rookie hazing process. Make the freshman feel like crap and once you become the upperclassman, it's your turn to treat the freshman like shit because you've earned it. Seems like this company has some of that going on.
> 2. Is it normal to be hired as a junior and just being thrown to the lions, with no help or time to ramp up?
Yes does happen but no it is not acceptable. Any company that does this--I would suspect they don't have amazing development practices overall.
> 3. Do all star/ninja/rock-star software developers have rotten attitudes?
As a rule of thumb, when I hear a company talk about their "ninja rockstar programmers," I run far far away. These are buzzwords typically used by incompetent companies with inflated egos. I'd actually be willing to bet that they're not as great developers as they make themselves out to be. Furthermore, good developers are good team players.
I previously worked for a company with "rockstar" developers. The company was so full of itself and the developers (while many were nice and friendly) were mediocre programmers that thought their domain expertise made them great programmers. There was one guy that would speak down to me as I was learning the domain when I was by far a better coder than him.
TLDR; Find a new place to work, your environment sounds toxic.
It sounds like you're in the same situation as the so-called "rockstar developers" once were. It's sort of like the perpetual rookie hazing process. Make the freshman feel like crap and once you become the upperclassman, it's your turn to treat the freshman like shit because you've earned it. Seems like this company has some of that going on.
> 2. Is it normal to be hired as a junior and just being thrown to the lions, with no help or time to ramp up?
Yes does happen but no it is not acceptable. Any company that does this--I would suspect they don't have amazing development practices overall.
> 3. Do all star/ninja/rock-star software developers have rotten attitudes?
As a rule of thumb, when I hear a company talk about their "ninja rockstar programmers," I run far far away. These are buzzwords typically used by incompetent companies with inflated egos. I'd actually be willing to bet that they're not as great developers as they make themselves out to be. Furthermore, good developers are good team players.
I previously worked for a company with "rockstar" developers. The company was so full of itself and the developers (while many were nice and friendly) were mediocre programmers that thought their domain expertise made them great programmers. There was one guy that would speak down to me as I was learning the domain when I was by far a better coder than him.
TLDR; Find a new place to work, your environment sounds toxic.