2022: A career review

Milestones and moments:

1. Completed my temp co-Tech Lead reign.
   2 weeks of being a temp co-TL along with a teammate ended on 7th Jan. I was ashamed at the time to admit to myself that he had done a better job than I had. He could’ve probably even managed on his own. I kept zoning out, unable to track the 20+ problems or provide good solutions. My speaking skills managed to salvage some points.
   I also didn’t like the experience I just had as co-TL. It was too much responsibility; I couldn’t take a break for a minute. What a reality check it was to my ambitions. But I didn’t want to tell this to my mentor and disappoint him.

2. Moved to a new sub-squad to assist the new TL.
   A 3rd sub-squad in 2 years, with a new TL. I was initially in the running to be the TL myself, but the management team (rightly, in my opinion) hired someone new to take over. And I was to help him to settle in to the Thoughtworks (TW) and the project's ways of working. My mentor said that this was a good opportunity for me to have increased levels of responsibilities, and I had to agree he was right. But it also meant I would no longer be working with him. It was the end of a great period for me, and a move on to something more challenging.
   I did not like my new role in the initial few weeks. I was spending more time in meetings with the TL and the clients than writing any code. I felt like a fraud. I was earning a chunk of money to just talk and listen.
   I was also sometimes being called upon instead of the new TL to help deal with problems that required a historical context. I was too busy sulking at the time to realise that this was a great boost to my reputation as a lead.

3. A heavy dose of architecture.
   I watched over 140 Developer to Architect videos over the year, and had subscribed to newsletters to keep up with the latest tools that an architect would need. This was the second major step (after becoming the stand-in TL) towards something bigger than writing code.

4. Gave an internal and an external talk.
   I noticed my nervousness was much less than it had been in 2020. Another one of my goals (speaking) was progressing well.

5. I am finally part of a team that took a feature live.
   It’s been 8 years, and I had previously always left a team just before the feature / product was released. And this time I just so happened to be the temp TL when it happened. A great boost to my confidence and my credibility as a future leader.

6. I helped take a microsite to production.
   My biggest achievement this year. My TL encouraged me to lead the efforts in getting a microsite built and deployed all the way till production. This involved co-ordinating with multiple teams, keeping the clients updated, clarifying issues for other developers, and debugging in prod. Basically, being a team lead for a feature.

7. Took sole charge of debugging prod issues after the initial month of release.
   Again, a bit of luck. The TL was not available. I was reading the prod logs alone, and reporting on them. This led to the client reaching out to me directly for subsequent issues.

8. The team has started to consider me as a lead.
   I had been acting as a substitute TL for many months now whenever the TL was not around. But the day I started explaining our Sprint plans to the team was the day they finally accepted that I too was a capable lead in his absence. I hadn’t been looking for their approval, but it boosted my confidence none the less that I was doing something right.

9. Went to office for the first time since the pandemic started on 26th Aug, 2022.

10. I now find the role of a mentor easy.
    As of the end of the year, I’m working with 9 mentees (one of the highest in TW India) and have gotten good reviews from them.

11. Interviews on hold.
    I conducted very few interviews this year, due to the pressure of our delivery.
    
    

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Notable firsts:

1. Was part of a team that took a product live.
2. Led the efforts in getting a feature built and deployed to prod.
3. Acted as temp TL consistently throughout the year.
4. Involved in the planning stages of the team’s work.

New things learnt:

1. nmap (basics)
2. BDD testing, using ginkgo and gomega
3. Distributed logging, via streaming and subscribing
4. Fitness functions
5. Observability
6. Kubernetes (basics)
7. Monorepos
8. GoCD configuration
9. Webpack configuration
10. Web 3.0
11. React Native Deeplinking (basics)
12. https://json-schema.org/
13. Git worktrees, git squash.
14. CryptoJS.
15. Websockets.

Reflections:

1. There were 3 major themes this year: learning architecture, getting face-time and trust with clients, and leading the efforts in building a feature.
2. I have completely conquered one of my weaknesses from last year - context switching. It was achieved by sheer brute force practice.
3. I had disliked the taste of the TL role at the start of the year - the messiness and the chaos. I just wanted to write code. But by the end of the year I realised that building systems is inherently a messy process and it’s a marvel anything works at all. Only a conscientious person can get the job done. I am now okay with what the role requires.
4. No matter how much we talk about values and culture, money matters most. And one must be wary of moonshot projects during recession.

My plan for 2023: Non-tech skills of a leader, and Data. It’s time to diversify my skillset.