My career wrap 2022- Reflecting on this year's journey.

First of all Kudos! to Syed Fazle Rahman and his team for starting this campaign #devretro2022 to give all of us a chance to pause and think about what we achieved this year and how far we have come. We as developers often tend to ignore our own accomplishments in the midst of all the chaos and fast-moving technical world and that leads us to feel overwhelmed and a feeling of not doing enough. But, it is important to reflect upon our journey so far and appreciate our efforts in order to move forward.

I started this year on a note of becoming a better version of myself as most of us do with all those new year's resolutions and yes, one of those was eating healthy and staying fit(we all know how that goes)😆.

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But, I did keep some of my resolutions and one of them was getting admission into NeoGCamp,2022 batch. If you don't know what it is, I request you to look for this legend Tanay Pratap . He has transformed the lives of so many like me. NeogCamp helped me learn a lot of things I never knew before even though I was working as a Frontend Developer for 2years. I became part of a community with like-minded folks who had the same passion and love for their career and aspired to become the best version of themselves. I am that person who can figure out stuff and get the work done at the end of the day, but somewhere there were gaps in my basics which sometimes made my confidence a bit low. Neog helped me fill those gaps and I learned the basics of JavaScript, CSS, ReactJs, NodeJS, and Express. Not only this, I was fortunate to meet some lovely people and made great friends. I think as a Software Developer it is very important to surround yourself with like-minded people as it helps one to stay focused and it feels amazing to have friends who share the same interests as you.

Another goal that I had in mind for this year was to be part of a product-based organization, and it was one of the reasons behind joining Neog. I was lucky enough to get an offer from Doordash as a Software Engineer even before completing Neog. I must say this was something that I didn't plan to do, but I guess unplanned things are even better. So, how did I get this job? Well, I had this thing for giving interviews just to keep myself updated with the trends, and also it gave me a reality check of where I stood in my career. That's how I landed up applying for Doordash and eventually made it through. I joined Chowbotics team of Doordash in the month of March 2022 and was very excited to work on their product.

Everything was going great! I was happy to finally move forward in the direction I took. But, life had other plans, after almost 3 months the product was discontinued and I was taken aback because I was just starting to understand the in and outs of the product. I felt lost, and it could clearly be seen in my performance. I remember having gotten the same feedback from my manager. I took some time to retrospect on this and found out that I was just uncomfortable with the change and instead of seeing it as an opportunity of being part of something better I was seeing it as a setback. We as human beings tend to see the negative aspect of things first rather than the positives and that's just how the mind works and that's what led me to feel lost and confused. But as the saying goes, you have to learn to pick yourself up, nobody else can do that for you. So, instead of thinking about what had happened, I started looking forward to what was yet to come.

And then I was made part of the Data Engineering Team at Doordash. I was responsible for building a product for the data team. To do this, I had to learn how data works, what the Data Team at Doordash does, and how I fit into this picture. Again, this was not easy, I was overwhelmed with all the terminologies and technologies of data. I tried to learn and gain knowledge as fast and as much as I could, but somewhere I felt a lack of motivation because I was used to getting the requirements clearly from the client and then working on those to deliver as per expectations. But, this time it was different, I had to get the requirements on my own and understand the problem statement, suggest the best possible solution, and take ownership of my work. I was unaware and puzzled about the word "ownership", I was not able to understand what it means. I was doing my work, and getting things done but still, I kept on getting feedback that I was not owning up to things. So, I reached out to people about what it really meant, and what I realized was that I was no longer a junior dev and that is why the expectations have changed. Now, I should be able to see the bigger picture rather than focus on getting work done. I must analyze each and every aspect before making a decision and have solid points and reasons to support it. I should be able to carry forward a task independently, that's what ownership is, basically, you are the sole person who is responsible for the task whether it is successful or fails, you have to take the responsibility for everything.

This helped me to grow as a Software Engineer, and I feel this is what we call critical feedback. I think this should be one of the priorities of a dev in terms of career growth. Try to get frequent feedback from your colleagues and managers, and learn and work on the focus points. This will not only help you grow as a Software Engineer but will help you understand yourself better.

That's how my 2022 has been, I am grateful for all the challenges and experiences so far and look forward to 2023 to add more to it.

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it and if so, please make sure to share it with others and appreciate it with likes and comments.