[holograham]

Not a ton of details in your post but I will attempt to decipher what appears to be the problem from a tech dev manager perspective

1. Project time - were expectations communicated up front? What estimation methods are you using? Agile scrum for cadences/daily reporting? Your post reads that you did heads down work for awhile. That is a recipe for disaster for a junior dev. Daily checkins (or at least 3x a week) is the norm for my organization.

2. Requirements - see frequent check ins above - as well as what mushufasa comments as well. A HUGE part of great modern development in enterprise is constantly iterating requirements and getting feedback. This is something I specifically sit down with new college hires. This is not college anymore with a well bounded problem - you have unlimited problem space and you need to define boundaries constantly. One of my favorite quotes is: "the difference between a good developer and a great developer is that a great developer knows when NOT to code"

3. Design decisions - does your group have a design review / peer review process? A junior dev should always have a senior dev review code prior to check in. Your check in's should be frequent (daily is common but there is debate on exact frequency). It should not be weeks particularly for a junior dev.

4. Perhaps your most egregious error is your comment that you should have checked other projects. I assume youre working for a large-ish company. It is imperative you do not re-invent the wheel for every assignment. Particularly for the "glue" or standard pattern parts (which usually amounts to 80% of the work). This is something your manager ideally makes explicit early on (perhaps this was the meeting). I have had lots of frustrating convos where the developer took weeks to solve something that was a known pattern or solution if they just went to the firm's stack overflow or checked another similar projects github.

5. Managers are people too they have off days and can be frustrated with a million other pressures going around. I have definitely had days like that and likely took it out unfairly on a junior dev. More-so if this is your managers boss who likely doesnt deal with junior dev's day-to-day. His/Her expectations are different.