2019 into 2020
2019 was an exciting year, though perhaps not as eventful as 2018. Here are some of the major events and accomplishments of the past year in mostly chronological order.
2019 in review
Last year, I:
- Officially hit one year in the industry: My previous experience is valuable but scattered; this is one year straight of work
- Took on new work responsibilities: I began work as a UI Engineer lead at TSYS
- Accepted first conference talk: I got the news in June that I was accepted to speak at Connect.Tech 2019
- Attended two conferences: Abstractions in Pittsburgh and Connect.Tech in Atlanta
- Interviewed at multiple companies: Dusted off the ol’ code challenge skills
- Accepted an offer at Niche: Front-end Software Engineer at an exciting company in Pittsburgh
- Moved to Pittsburgh: Said a sad “goodbye” to all our wonderful friends in Atlanta
- Added some new features to Niche.com: Most of them minor, but it’s neat to see your work in action
- Spoke at a conference: React and Accessibility at Connect.Tech 2019
- Started a learning program at Niche: Weekly tech learning sessions over lunch with live demos
- Published eleven npm packages: And learned a lot about package management along the way
- Passed 10K downloads on a package:
a11y-react-emojiis off to the races! - Published thirteen articles: Off the mark, but still solid
Some of these things were fulfilling goals that I had set in the previous year, while others were completely out of the blue. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to try new things this past year.
Previewing 2020
Looking forward to this year, there are several things that I want to learn and do. I am going to list some general goals, followed by measurable ways that I can accomplish them.
- Read more: I want to read four professional and six personal books
- Open source: I want to become a maintainer on an open-source library (that I didn’t create)
- Write more: Last year I missed the mark, so I’m going to set a goal of publishing 18 articles in 2020
- Speaking: I want to create a deck and present at a Meetup here in Pittsburgh
- Father: I want to use the time I have with my son more productively, going on father-son outings twice a month
- Faith: I want lead family worship every day, and read/reflect on the Bible daily
- Fitness: I want to exercise 5 days a week
- Soccer: I want to find room in the family schedule to play a pick-up game twice a month