- Started working from home;
- Furloughed;
- Learnt new programming skills;
- Programmed most days;
- Was made redundant and found a new job.
That pretty much sums up my whole lockdown.
When I was initially furloughed, which was pretty much at the start of lockdown, I was utterly disappointed, mortified and just generally felt awful. From speaking with friends who have been in similar situations, I feel as though not all companies understand how the process makes you feel. You feel as though it is a reflection on you as a developer and a person and that no amount or lack of reassurance from a company will dissipate that.
After this, I went into the mindset that I was going to code every day, to use this unprecedented time to develop my knowledge and skills so I was a somewhat stronger developer when I returned to work. I can say for the most part, that I kept to this mindset. I can't say that every day I programmed from dusk until dawn, but I put in between 25-40 hours a week into my development.
This blog post (if you can call it that - it's my first ever attempt at writing one, so please forgive the poorly formatted document) isn't going to go into all of the technical aspects, more of a birds-eye overview.
I had a feeling from the outset that I wasn't going to be going back to previous work, but even if I was or wasn't I owed it to myself to develop my skillset. I had a list of technologies that I wanted to develop my understanding of. Truth be told, I didn't get through half of them, although I did manage to expand my knowledge in ASP.NET Web API, .Net Identity, JavaScript, TypeScript, React, React Hooks, Vue, PostGres, Jest, MobX and MediatR. I've completed some great courses and read some fantastic books along the way. In fact, my new website tomfletcher.tech is built on most of that stack (no judgement, I'm still working on the design). I've used a combination of resources, from Udemy, TeamTreehouse, YT to blogs and books - side note - Digital Ocean is a fantastic learning resource.
The inevitable happened and I was unfortunately made redundant. As a result of using my time productively, I managed to find a new job relatively quickly at a company who is very development orientated and is the epitome of a great working environment.
I suppose this post is trying to highlight, whenever you have the opportunity to invest in yourself, do it.
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