#100DaysOfCode: Week 4

Four! Wow! A month??  That’s a month-worth of work!

Jeez, calm down, louise. This week was pretty uhhhh normal. I can’t really sugarcoat anything and make it appear like all the days of being a dev is magical and inspiring, butttt, what can I say? This week was just 5 days of normal-ness.

UNLESS

unless? Uhh, unless we see through the normalness and seek within! (Okay 2010 emo blog writer, slow down).

Normal? This week was just a week of coding, eating lunch with the teamsies, learning stuff, being paranoid for no reason, overthinking, and the likes. You know, typical dev stuff.

Deeper! Okayyyyyy, this week we tackled new features meaning new tasks to do as an engineer. (or dev, or coder, or whatever you wanna call it). We discussed logic, reasonings, possible alternatives and solutions to such wonders and WAM! End of the week. What really stood out the most was my development not only as a coder but as a person, really, regarding my views of expectation.

This week I had realistic expectations. That’s it. I’d say that’s a contender for the highlight of my week. I didn’t fully pressure myself to finish a task in a 2-day allnighter. I didn’t overestimate my abilities as a dev and sought through the problem one day at a time. I didn’t underestimate the problem at hand and grasped it as much as I can. I also voiced out my plans to the team regarding schedules and my day to day output.

It really was a great development overall as before, I would have these over the top expectations about things and it would end up with me facing all the consequences of such thinkings.

But this is not to say I did it all on my own. I really could not have developed such realistic expectations paired with such open communication without the team enabling such things.

The team I am currently at with my new company provided me with so much space to grow, to make mistakes, to ask for help, and to have fun (most especially!) that it resulted with such great development without additional pressure on my shoulder. I could see my mental health slowly pace to be better, and my code actually is wayyy much better now than the weeks or even months before (proven by our team lead appreciating my code and only asking for one tiny revision with my PR and immediately merged it!). Also, overall timewise, my code can scale better! That means less time for magically tinkering around components and accidentally breaking things, which means less time overall spent on such feature!

Side note before we continue! You may think I put wayyy to much meaning onto these PRs and commits and etc and it may not matter to you or so, but as a junior dev, these really matter as reviews from these PRs somehow document our growth (or at least mine) and it really does let me know that somehow I’m doing something right and towards something good.

Alright back! The whole point above is, with the right environment and the right people enabling your potential, or somehow enabling your growth to its maximum, anyone can be better at what they do. No matter what field or what activity, it is the core for improvement. (at least with what I’ve experienced myself)

Wooop, alright let’s stamp that and make that the official highlight of our week.

Here are what I’ve learned this week!

• Docker (and containers in general! thanks @frontendmasters)
• more code composability learnings
• open communication
• realistic expectations
• formik setValue()
• framer thingies!

I also got featured in @cassidoo’s newsletter for solving the weekly interview question! Looking forward for the next one, too.

As for our weekly book readings, I’m still with Emotional Design by Donald Norman like last week’s book since I didn’t get the read time I usually do!

Alright! Thank you for sticking with me on my Month 1 blog post. Appreciate ya!

See you on the next one!

 

 

#100DaysOfCode: Week 3

It’s a trilogy! Well if this was a movie then it would have been a trilogy, but this is more than a movie! These are my experiences and we need like infinite amounts of trilogies!

Okay movie goer, calm down. 😅 Today marks week three (3) of my probationary period at my current company, which by the way I appreciate very much as you’ve seen from previous posts, and a lot of things went down!

Confession time! The day I started working at my current company, I overheard my team talking about a previous probationary employee and how he didn’t qualify to be regularized. I didn’t get the full story as that would just seem nosy and insensitive to the guy who was not regularized. By the way we got to the topic because we were talking about college friends/acquaintances and he (the guy) was a common connection. Just to put it out there that we didn’t talk about people’s qualification out of nowhere 😂

Anyway, having to know that an acquaintance didn’t make the cut, these past few weeks have been gut wrenching as I, an overly overthinking human, could not stop thinking about it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it because I really wanted to stay there and it would suck to leave as everything I’ve wanted from a company — culture, mentorship, attitude, and talent — is present. I told myself that if I wanted to be here then I will have to do everything in my power to not fuck this opportunity up.

But this didn’t stop the idea of not being there creep into my head every once in a while.

So, I decided to talk it out with our team lead. I casually sneaked the conversation about the qualifications needed to be regularized during ‘pantry’ talk.

I told him that I’m really worried about fucking things up and end up leaving this amazing company I really wanted to stay in (well not the ‘amazing’ part as that would just seem too on the nose 😝). I asked what are the qualifications and who gets to evaluate who.

He answered the basics of the questions (who gets to evaluate who and the basic criteria/qualifications needed to be passed) but proceeded to this amazing conversation which I really needed. This team lead (which I also talked to in the previous post), for some reason, has the uncanny ability to just know what I’m really feeling behind these questions and then responds with the most assuring and empathetic responses ever.

He basically said that I don’t have to worry about anything since I’m doing a pretty good job at work. Just keep doing what I’m doing and that he believes in me. He believes that I’ll be a regularized employee in no time.

That might have been the most anti-climactic story telling you’ve ever read, but to me? that moment helped me move forward with whatever it was that I was feeling. It pushed me forward without having to feel additional pressure on my shoulders. The part where I know someone believes in me and my work, it just motivates me to be better. It’s not even an ego boost, it’s just pure reassurance that someone supports me in my endeavors and someone understands the struggle.

I might be looking way too deep into that conversation but that happened last Friday (today’s a Thursday the following week) and it really did help. A lot.

Anyway! That was the highlight for my trilogy week. As usual, I’ve learned a lot even when I’m working less (relative to my previous job where I usually overtime). Here are most of the things I’ve learned this week:

• React.memo()
• underscore.js and recompose
• more docker/container things
• server and cache mutations with Apollo
• React and Apollo dev tools
• useEffect and useCallback with event handlers
• Framer Motion funsies!

As you can see, I get to handle tickets regarding Apollo GraphQL now! And update from Week 1’s commit number to master, I probably have a total of 6 to 7 commits now! I know I really shouldn’t measure productivity or accomplishment with number of commits but I gotta tell you I love the process achieving 1 commit to master. Our lead reviews our code thoroughly and gives feedback so great that I get to learn so much things with daily tickets! That’s usually where I learn all the things I’m listing above.

Also, did I mention I found the library section of the company? It’s filled with great resources for learning almost anything! Programming languages, design, software architecture and etc!

This week I’m reading: The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. As I’ve read, it’s mostly about how to design things that are functional, visceral, and reflective. It’s a great book to channel inspiration on how to create things. I haven’t finished it yet so I can’t talk more about it 😆

Alright that’s it for this weeks #100DaysOfCode.

Hope you had a great one, too! (Or if not, then that’s fine too! we gotta appreciate the downs in being a dev! and I hope it gets better 💓 )

Let me know how it went on twitter! @carlojanea

Okiedokie, thanks for catching up with me! See you on the next one!

 

#100DaysOfCode: Week 2

It’s week two! Two! That’s like a sequel to a week, another chapter to a book, a new week to a month, and well because it definitely was!

How time flies and crawls at the same time!

Anyway, remember in last week’s post I’ve confessed about some discomfort in me-gut-stomach about asking for help, code reviews, and etc.? Well I tried to sneakity sneak it into casual conversations with our team lead and you know what happened? Probably the best thing in the world an ‘unsure’ dev could experience!

Basically said I’m kinda feeling guilty about asking my teammates for constant code reviews, questions, and help. And that I felt like I was bugging them with their daily tasks/tickets.

His reply? Assurance and empathy. He said that whatever I’m doing now, that it’s correct. That asking questions and code reviews is pretty normal and I really shouldn’t be worried about it. That I was just only doing my job and that my teammates responding to me would just be also them doing their job. He also said to not worry because we’ve all been there. They’ve been the new guy and that they know that it will take time and there’s no better way to jumpstart it but to ask for help.

I swear to you I felt my heart sank because I’ve never felt words powered with empathy and assurance in my entire dev life. (And I know this should be normalized and should just be the bare minimum standard of leadership, but realistically, people like these are rare and I’m just so grateful and appreciative of this)

That was probably the highlight of this week 2. I reflected upon that experience and wanted to pass that on whenever I can and however I can within my career.

But aside from that, there were a lot of learning opportunities this week! Here are some:

• Render Props
• useCallback vs useMemo
• Html canvas
• the CH unit
• composability of components

 

But as all the good things that happened this week, the bad balances it out. I’ve been sick the entire weekend and was coughing and sneezing like a maniac the whole week. So you could say that I was pretty sick the entire week. Was so fatigued and tired when I got home from work I couldnt do much activities but rest.

Also! Since we’re talking about extra activities, I started participating in Ms. Cassidy William’s (@cassidoo) newsletter interview quizzes. I havent figured it out yet but I’ll continue the answer this weekend (Hope I feel better!)

And yeah, that’s pretty much it for this second week of my #100daysofcode

Hope you’re having a blast at your own adventures, too!

See you next week!

#100DaysofCode: Week 1

I might be using the hashtag incorrectly but this is my journey as a junior developer at my second company. I considered using the #100DaysOfCode hashtag because there was really no proper junior experience from my first dev job. No proper mentorship, improperly handled project management, burnout and the list goes on.

My second dev job though, which I am at this point of time am so thankful for, has all the missing parts of a proper entry level experience. Empathy, mentorship, patience, and a great team dynamic.

Was that too much for an introductory message? Anyway! In the past few days (5 working days) I have learned so much great things from my mentors (teammates). To list some down would include:

• Code composability
• Time management
• Apollo GraphQL
• Responsibility over code
• Empathy towards the product, the team, and the client
• Containers!
• Git!

And a lot more internal stuff. But this is not to say that all were rainbows and butterflies. As a junior, I often feel like I’m bugging my teammates too much for code reviews, for help, or even for just a talk.

This really isn’t their fault as I overthink way too much and overcomplicate things in my head. In fact, the team at my new job are way too wholesome (and talented!). It’s just really me still traumatized from previous experiences, i guess. You see once you expose yourself to something toxic, it’s not a one bath-cleanse all kind of thing.  It takes time. And I really appreciate my new company for understanding. (or at least I believe they do!)

With words like “oh no, please don’t feel any pressure just at your own pace”, or “you don’t have to be sorry, it’s totally fine”. Warms my heart.

Everyday I’m reminded about how blessed, lucky, and privileged I am to experience such things.

Also, two of my PRs got merged to master! Just after 20 – 25 revisions, it finally got in LOL. Gotta remember and appreciate the little successes in dev. 🙂

Anyway! Know that i’m doing my best to get better with myself and my work!

See you!