The holiday leftovers are starting to disappear from the fridge and weight-loss commercials are being shown constantly on television...this can only mean one thing: the year is coming to a close. Before 2018 wraps up next week, I want to reflect on everything I've accomplished in the past year as a software engineer. Here's some of the major highlights:
- This past July, I proposed to my (now) fiancée Michelle. Having a partner that I love and trust has been invaluable to my growth personally and professionally. Her faith in me and my skills has given me the confidence to keep pushing myself to new heights. Naturally, I used a super cheesy website to pop the question.
- I went to my first developer conference, Visual Studio Live. It was an awesome experience that I detailed in a previous post.
- In October, I got to participate in the public launch of a SaaS product that I've been working on for the past 2.5 years. After spending so much time and effort on a project, it was fulfilling to see it finally go out into the wild.
- After the product launch, I spent the end of 2018 searching and interviewing for a new position. I was challenged with multiple interviews and coding exercises, more than ever before in my career. I ultimately wound up accepting a consulting role that I am excited to start in 2019.
- I finally took the time to redesign my site, and even started blogging somewhat regularly. This has been on my agenda for a while, but I hadn't gotten around to it until this year. A large amount of that credit can be given to Gatsby.js, which provided me with a great new framework to learn and an awesome platform to make writing these posts as painless as possible. I'm very excited to use Gatsby and the JAMstack philosophy on projects in the future.
Up next in my cliché blog topics series will be my 2019 goals, which I'm hoping to post sometime next week.