My Career moves for 2022

It has been two years since I last wrote on this blog. A lot has happened between that time. There was a pandemic, I have changed jobs, massive Blockchain and Web3 hype and so much more. However, I decided to pick up active blogging again this year to document my learnings and experiences. I hope to become consistent moving forward.

Since 2019, I have written a yearly plan of technologies I was interested in except 2021. In 2021, I didn’t have any goals and just wanted to focus on work.

My last article was about a list of technologies I wanted to learn in 2020. In this article, I’ll be giving a status report of my progress so far, where I am and then introduce what I’m curious to learn this year.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED SO FAR

In the 2020 article, I listed the following technologies. Contrary to the 2019 list, I decided to keep the list short this time around.

• Python: I only know JavaScript and felt I needed to learn another programming language. This didn’t turn out well for several reasons mostly because I didn’t have any end goal in mind and was just curious. I quickly learned it wasn’t by knowing so many languages but by being good at them. I figured my time was better spent getting better at JavaScript and my framework of choice.

• TypeScript: I didn’t have the opportunity to learn TypeScript until the end of last year when I started working on a project that relies heavily on TypeScript and realized that I couldn’t keep ignoring it. It’s one of the technology I’ll be improving on this year.

• GraphQL: I wanted to learn it cause of the hype, never had any use case for it and quickly abandoned it. To date, I haven’t had any use for it and continue to work with REST APIs for building applications.

• SQL: Before 2020, I have not worked with a SQL database. I decided to learn it since a lot of companies use it as their choice of database and this proves to be a good decision as I have mostly worked on SQL related databases such as MySQL and Postgress since then.

Also, during this period, I have managed to work with new technologies such as AWS mostly on the job and got better at problem-solving.

2022?

My goal for this year is a bit different from past years that were purely technical as I have come to realise that other factors that are important for a great career.

• TypeScript: This goes first in the list for the reasons stated above. I currently work with TypeScript but still struggle. My aim is to become better at it and make it my default way of writing JavaScript.

• Open Source: I have gotten involved in open source over the past year, contributing to projects and becoming a core member of Chakra UI Vue. This year aside from contributing to other projects, I want to get started building projects on my own and maybe get others to contribute.

• Launch a Personal/Side Project: I have always toyed with the idea of launching a project that isn’t tied to work. Might finally get to do this with Tecmie, a product lab and consultancy I run with a friend.

• Product Management: Last year, I was involved in a lot of decision-making processes at work as well as leading different teams. I liked it and that path made me take an interest in product management. I consider myself a Product Engineer and this year, I want to get better at the product side of things.

• Read Software Books: During the first quarter of the year, I had meetings with some people I admire and I asked each of them one of the ways to grow your career and they all echoed the same answer. Read technical books. Read books about engineering and software as well as soft skills. I’ll be taking this advice and devoting my time to reading some books. Keep up with my progress on GoodReads

• Backend Development: I have worked both on the Frontend and Backend parts of development but I feel I have had more experience on the Frontend. There are advanced topics on the backend such as distributed systems, scaling, etc that I don’t have experience in and I want to bridge that gap. Maybe learn a bit of DevOps too.

• Blockchain: Even if you’re not in tech, you must have heard of Blockchain or cryptocurrency which is an application of blockchain technology. It could be interesting to dive into the space and learn the tech behind it and possibly build dummy projects. I’m still sceptical of the buzz and how it affects the tech space but I believe it’s an interesting space worth exploring.

While the list is a mix of both work and personal, work is paramount. This simply means I’ll learn what I need to get the job done and not fixate on a particular technology.

Overall, I want to do more challenging things this year and move my career on the trajectory I want it to go. I want to be consistent in blogging, sharing wins and documenting my progress.

Like I said last time, I hope to take it one step at a time and ensure I do my best to complete my goals. Writing articles, documenting my progress and building projects are the best ways to solidify my knowledge of what I learn. So these are the steps I’ll be taking to ensure my time learning the technologies is worth it.