Onboarding Night Journal

It's 1:00 am. I don’t understand what I do awake, certainly not why I'm writing a post now, but why not? Bare with me if you like.

I'll just use words, explain things, share a bit, and will all move on with our lives.

function addZero(i) {
  if (i < 10) {
    i = '0' + i;
  }
  return i;
}

const d = new Date();
let h = addZero(d.getUTCHours() + 2);
let m = addZero(d.getUTCMinutes());

if (h === 24) {
  h = 0;
} else if (h === 0) {
  h = 12;
}
let time = addZero(h) + ':' + m;

if (time === '01:00') {
  alert("Let's write a new post!");
}
//How my brain works

I will start with some insights. Dev.to is AMAZING - Why you ask? Well, my first and not the best (in my eyes) post got viewed 154 times in the first three days, and I hope it’s not counting the times I reviewed it again and again, lol.

I got 60 followers on my first week - which is incredible! Thank you, my dear I-hope-you-aren't-bots followers!

After reviewing my previous post, I realized I hadn’t explained what it was like my first 14 days as a DevRel. Later better than never.

My experience from the past week applies in some ways to my first two weeks. It will probably be better to be more chronological with the timeline of my story.
 

WORK ENVIRONMENT

My job is entirely remote. So the first few days were more to set up everything and realize on what planet I’m currently on.

Working remotely is great in so many ways. I will name my main two:

1. I can spend much more time with my family (my wife and my cute doggo girl). I’m more of a dog person - so if it’s an issue for you, deal with it. I always wanted to write that line.

2. Food is always around (It’s terrible in the long run, but I’m in control of it - so no worries here).
   It’s kinda cool to tell my wife, “Honey, I’m going to work” - and just go to the next room.

And, I got awesome gear to work with, and the cherry top is……..VR set. Yes, I got an ‘Oculus Quest 2’ from my company in order to do meetings with the team!

Note: I was really skeptical about all the VR things…But I was amazed.
In our first meeting, we were six people in the room, and we sat
around the table and could see the avatars of each other move and
talk. The incredible sensation was that I could hear in 360 degrees. I
heard the voice of my colleague across the table where He was sitting
and could hear the voice of the person who was right next to me - so
the interaction felt extremely natural and decent.

P.S we are also having some quality team time playing games.

Disclaimer: I can’t wear them for more than an hour, my eyes start to hurt, and I get a headache - so mind that before going and start a revolution in your workplace.

To my relief - we don’t do too many meetings, and not all meetings are in VR.

Twitter

I got reasonably active on Twitter. I never really used Twitter before - and currently standing on 11 followers, which is good (not really.. I want to cry in my pillow), it is totally a step in the right direction!

Oh, and I think I got a strategy to grow!

I am still building my case here, but there is huge room for hashtag use. Back in the days, when I was growing Instagram accounts, I was researching hashtags that were relevant to me and my audience, picking up “small” hashtags and using them constantly to dominate the hashtag. And afterward, when I was reaching my dominance goals, I would pick a bit ‘bigger’ hashtags and so on.

Oh, and apparently, there are few bots on Twitter that are programmed to retweet certain hashtags - so sometimes I just get on their wave and expose my tweets to a few thousand people.
 

Discord

Our Discord community is lovely, but we got lots of work to do. Such as adding new sub-channels, cool bots, initiating interesting and engaging conversions, etc.

Btw, I added a ‘memes’ sub-channel - It makes me so proud. Everybody needs their daily dose of humor combined with collective pain feelings.

The Heavy-lifting

And now to the technical part. Technical, I said? Haha! It’s more like an all-day-watching-tutorials-research-in-google-ask-for-advice-finding-projects-grinding-till-the-brain-boils kind of part. But yeah, if you call it technical, then that’s what it is.

Udemy is my all-time open tab on my browser.the main focus-study material I’m getting from there.

FreeCodeCamp and TheOdinProject are my other besties. They’ve got sooooo much to offer. We got a love-hate relationship already.

I made cute animation in my GitHub profile. (That is so not the point of GitHub, I know)

I just was playing around - and am not ashamed.

To those who are about to leave me for good - I assure you I’m working on actual repos too.

In my journey to become a developer, I need to blend in with the culture, of course. The word on the street says that Rick & Morty series, along with Marvel Cinematic Universe, is almost a requirement to be considered a ‘fellow’ developer. The fact that I’m subscribed to the ‘New Rockstars’ channel on YouTube checking the ‘MCU’ box for me. (I’m a huge Marvel fan). And I’m on episode 6 of the 1st season (and going) for Rick and Morty - so I think I’m doing good on that front as well.

I got so much to write and tell - but not all at once.

So I’m wrapping this party.

My main focus is finishing my blog, which I am building using Strapi & Next.js. I feel like I will change stacks like three more times. You are more than welcome to make your suggestions in the comments as well. It will not be unnoticed.

Every day I find many interesting people, especially developers and engineers, to follow and get inspired by, but I could effectively consume only so much content and knowledge.

One of my goals is to filter those streams of pure brain food better and efficiently.

One more goal, and I’m out, crossing my heart.

Still deciding on how to communicate daily my coding progress - it’s a tough one.

And again, your suggestions would be helpful here, comment. COMMENT DAMN IT!

That’s it,

Pearceman out.