Life 👨🏻‍🦰

As we fall into the final weeks of winter, I passed my 30th Birthday so had a few moments of deep reflection on my 20's and well, my life so far.

It's weird to think that by the time you're 30 the vast majority of your 20's was the decision time of your future. Or at least, it feels that way.

Let's break down my 20's:

20-21

University, first job, fun.

22-23

First job stagnation, realized the job wasn't what I signed up for, got pushed into a sales role when I'm a Software Engineer, toxic environment too.

23-25

Second job, amazing company, great people, great culture, great work. Got promoted, had a great mentor (Cheers Mo!) and learned a lot.

25-27/28~

Covid. The lost years. It's only now, 2 years after the pandemic ended that I'm really realizing the effect it had on me, my mental state, my career, my relationships.

I'm still trying to figure out what I lost. In this time I left the good job I got when I was 23, started a new one at the UK Gov which was good, quickly left that and moved to Beamery where I am now.

28-30(now)

I left the Gov, joined Beamery. After a pretty shit 28, I spent 29 really working on myself and figuring out who I wanted to be. It almost felt like a new awakening, bit awkward to type.

Needless to say, the biggest takeaway from my 20's was I wasted so much energy on the wrong things, people and lifestyle. I wasn't who I wanted to be and as a result I wasn't, what I would consider, happy. It wasn't until I turned 29 that I really realized this and made a conscious effort to change, then as I turned 30 I made even larger changes.

Running

First race for the season, London Winter 10k! Full stats here. However, absolutely over the moon at my 50:25 10k, a PB and a 5k PB at 24:47. The 10k PB smashed my previous record by nearly 8 minutes.

Side effect of this, has been Sabrine has agreed to sign up to a June 5k and a 10k in October. In the meantime I got my eyes on a half marathon soon 👀

What I've read.. 📚

The Software Engineering Guidebook by Gergely Orosz

This has been an absolute game-changer in how I view my career trajectory. I'm finally getting a handle on the big/medium tech landscape and how to navigate it like a pro. Since leaving my first job, I've been missing that crucial mentor figure in my life—and it's kind of wild to admit this book has comfortably filled that void (for now). Who knew paper could give better career advice than most humans?

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport

I'm making a conscious effort to reduce my screentime on my mobile devices. Each interaction should be more meaningful and with purpose, not brainrot or doomscrolling. Easier said than done. But this book has been a fairly interesting read so far. I'm hoping to implement some of the strategies in the coming weeks, so we'll see how that goes.

Links

• The end of programming as we know it AI is the evolution of the next step of programming

• How Monzo tolerates full cloud outages a fascinating read on how Monzo handles cloud outages.

• LLM codegen workflow interesting read on how they use LLM in their workflow to generate code.

What I've listened to.. 🎧

Audiobook wise I'm listening to A Court Of Thorns And Roses. A world building fantasy novel that has a pretty good dramatisation version. I'm not usually a fan of fantasy but this has been a good listen so far. It's a recommendation from my partner, so I'm giving it a go. Needless to say she's been right about most of the books she's recommended so far.