Over the past several years, I have put a lot of thought
into the life I want. In a similar vane, I have made some
significant changes and progress leading towards that
lifestyle. Sometimes, it is difficult to be mindful of the
progress we have made and, instead, focus on the fact that
we aren't "there" yet.
Before going into details, I want to point out something I
believe to be important but often forget. There is no
guarantee of a tomorrow. The past is over. All we really
have is now. We should be mindful and living in the moment
whenever possible because that is true reality. Think about
it -- when you're having a great time and really into the
"now", time goes by so quickly. The last thing you probably
want to do is make lists, go buy some material thing, or
otherwise harp on how you can make your situation
better. You're too busy existing and enjoying the hell out
of that existence.
In the same vane, it's really easy to fall into the trap of
"the grass is greener" when things aren't great. It's really
easy to do mental gymnastics and convince yourself that if
you just did this thing, or if you just had more money, or
whatever -- that you will be happier, or that under those
circumstances you can truly enjoy life. The reality is that
we (being most of us in the West) already have everything
that we need and it's this desire for more that ultimately
leads to suffering.
Let me give you a concrete example. I have a family. I'm not
quite middle aged (what is middle aged these days?) but am
old enough to seen how fast three decades can fly by. I have
lived poor and I have lived with a relatively privileged
income. I have worked hard and saved. I have also blown
money on stupid things, usually with the help of a bank,
credit card, or some financial institution to fulfill that
instant gratification. Ultimately, all I really want is time
and the freedom to pursue my own happiness. Given what I
said before, this is ironic or paradoxical.
Some of my beliefs are probably complicated. I will be the
first to admit that they may not always make sense. I also
believe that is okay. Before moving on to the original theme
of this written piece, let me share some constraints I am
trying to work around.
Like I said, I have a family. I want to spend more time with
my family. Ideally, I would like to spend *prime* time with
my family. For me, that means seeing my children when the
sun is up and not just existing (to them) as the back of
head in front of a computer. We recently moved pretty far
North; further North than where I grew up. When the sun
sets at 4PM for a month, you quickly see how little time
there really is in a day. That time from sunrise to sunset
is the only time I get to really enjoy doing anything with
them that doesn't turn into a repetitive pattern of "eat
dinner, hang out for a bit, and do the whole bath & bed-time
routine".
In my mind, all of this material crap is not worth what we
sacrifice. Are we happier than the "poor" (relatively
speaking) families who have very little but spend a lot of
quality time together? I'm not trying to be dismissive of
the sheer hardship that poverty brings upon folks, I
personally lived it when I was a little kid. There is
something to be said about this constant desire for
*more*. A newer car, the latest electronics, a better home,
celebrating holidays by practically showering children with
gifts, and so fourth. Do these things actually make us
happier? In hindsight, will the kids (or myself) really look
back and think "I'm really glad we sacrificed so much time
so we could have these things"? I doubt it.
Anyways, these are just the kind of invasive thoughts I deal
with. Like any good steward of invasive thoughts, I have a
plan! In fact, I do see a path which leads to greener
grasses. Hopefully I can get there before it's too
late. Hopefully it's worth it.
When I started my career, I began doing side-work
(freelance) based solely on word-of-mouth. I was young but
also had a kid. At the time, it paid way better than working
in any kitchen, delivering pizza, or being a general laborer
doing landscaping and construction. Unfortunately, I did
not have any sort of mentor in terms of business. I was
naive. I had no friends in the (tech) industry. I decided to
go to school and pursue a degree; first in Electronics
Engineering and then switching over to Computer Science. I
was able to live off of supplemental money which were
bundled as part of student loans. The little I made from
freelance work was a huge help but I will admit I did not
manage my money well by any means. Without going into
details, it was a tough time in life while raising a young
child, and the last thing on my mind was regretting the
amount of debt I was going to get myself into. I could
always pay it off later, I thought to myself.
Fast-forward a bit and this freelance work started to grow
into bigger contracts. Essentially, people with money were
pseudo-hiring me using contracts so I could foot my own
taxes and such. Looking back, I was used and abused but it
was my own choice. It was also a fantastic experience and it
was the time I had the most flexibility and freedom to lead
that I've experienced in my entire career. A decade later,
the projects I worked on during this time were some of the
most interesting and exciting work I have done.
One day, I had a recruiter reach out to me about a remote
position with some company in another state. The recruiter
told me about the culture, it being a "startup within a
corporation", the pay (wow!), the benefits (health care for
my child?), and so fourth. I decided to go through the
interview process. Part of it was implementing a fun little
game that can be played in the web browser. The people were
really nice. I'm not sure how, but I was on the way to the
grocery store with my young child in the back seat when I
got an unexpected call from the hiring manager. We spoke for
probably 2 hours. Fast forward, and I was hired. They
brought me into town a few times and despite some personal
issues going on in life (specifically with insomnia and a
requirement to be at 9am meetings, let alone an evolution
into on-call duties which I never signed up for initially
but became weekends of torture), I really enjoyed working
with this group of people. Eventually, the corporation who
owned the "startup" decided they cared more about the bottom
line. They moved everyone into their actual corporate
building, cleaned house with most of the original
management, and turned this technology division into a shell
of its previous self. I left.
If you're still reading, you're probably wondering why I
jumped into a long tangent. It's actually simple -- this is
the first part of a pattern I've seen in myself. It happened
three more times. I join these companies who are still great
to work with but financially secure and then they either get
immediately bought or had just been bought and the new owner
decides to shake things up -- always for the worst. That
probably sounds far-fetched but it happened.
Anyways, back to the point. Here is exactly what I am
looking for:
1. Asynchronous.
There is no reason, short of well-planned and
well-articulated meetings, that I need to be working when
another human being is. If other software engineers cannot
work productively unless others are constantly available
then there is something wrong at play. I understand that
pair programming can be very productive. I know that
sometimes people just have a quick question. However, this
really speaks more about the culture of the company and the
pace at which it wants to do things. We should be sharing
information through documentation, shared communications
like email threads, or other valuable forms of
collaboration.
I am also so tired of most applied forms of "agile"
development methodologies. In reality, these are just fancy
ways for management, and management's management, all the
way up the chain to micromanage their employees. Why are you
hiring "professional" engineers but then treating them like
children? Scrum and related systems are not at all
beneficial for most developers. One of my very first roles
(contract) was with my Java teacher and he was a very early
adapter of agile, using the Agile Manifesto as his guide. He
did it great. I also personally implemented pieces of it in
multiple gigs where I lead projects. My first corporate job
used Kan-Ban and it worked really, really well. After that,
the poop just ran downhill. All that is to say, I will speak
up if I am blocked on something and otherwise, I do not
understand the purpose of a "standup" meeting; especially
one where we all have to be in a video conference together,
and especially since all of these post-COVID-19 remote
employees have decided they need to replicate their office
lives in the form of video conferencing.
I also have personal reasons for wanting to work
asynchronously. If it is a nice day outside, I want to go
play with my kids, hike, do some gardening, or whatever. I
should not have to sit in front of a computer and waste my
time because someone might potentially message me on
Slack. I also don't believe any programmer can realistically
do 40 hours of actual programming (sitting in front of a
computer) each week and not eventually burnout. I personally
know at least two engineers who claim to have ADHD and
actively use stimulants -- and it shows. I often wonder if I
am the only one who notices. Also, there is no good reason
that one cannot have a reasonable amount of well-planned
work, knock it out at any given hour, and then walk
away. This is not a restaurant where we need to be available
for customers at any given time; it's much more similar to
.. well, software development. I suppose this is why people
who call themselves software engineers catch flack from
other engineers.
2. Part Time or Freelance
Similar to my rationale for wanting to work asynchronous, I
want to work part-time or as a freelancer. I want small,
bite-sized chunks of work where I know what I need to do,
work a handful of hours to knock it out, and then I am
done. I have never worked part-time in the tech industry, so
that peice may be wishful thinking. However, when it comes
to freelance work, I get to dictate everything besides the
requirements.
I could write more here, but I feel as if it's pretty
self-explanatory at this point.
3. Side Projects
I have had ideas on paper for several years now. Some, to
the point where I have a ton of details drafted. I have not
had time to make them because ... I have been busy. I also
simply haven't made time. Now, the motivation is
significantly stronger. I am also hopeful that these side
projects can bring in some "passive" income.
Another huge factor in wanting to work on side projects is
that I honestly love having creative control in the things
that I do. Especially when I am ultimately responsible for
them and I spend so much time and energy bringing them to
fruition. I also believe the projects I want to build are
useful for others; but most importantly they are useful to
me or others that I know. These satisfy some personal needs.
4. Switch Domains
During my career, I somehow got myself pidgeonholed into
this devops trend. I don't know how it happened; I am not a
strong operations person by any means. I've learned a lot,
which is actually really great. I have got to work with some
really cool tooling and have literally worked for (and with)
companies who I thought were awesome in my younger days.
Before I was holed up in the devops world, I was more of a
"full-stack" web developer. I really enjoyed working on
every piece of applications. Unfortunately, that is just
really the art of stitching other people's work together to
form a cohesive product and deliver it in a stable
manner. Due to the fact that most applications die pretty
quickly, or businesses need to keep their budgets strict, or
everyone is in a constant rat race to get their crap out
there to the world, this involves a lot of "high level"
programming using languages like PHP and Python that really
handle almost everything for you. In fact, I have been
surprised during interviews or while tinkering with code on
how little I actually know.
I have a strong desire to work at a much lower level. I
enjoy writing code in C, although I have never done it
professionally. When I mention that to those who have, they
sigh and talk about how much they hate it. I also enjoy
writing code with Rust and tinkering with Zig, although I've
written so little that it's possible I simply don't have the
experience to speak on how bad it is. I also enjoy using
functional programming languages; Clojure, F#, and ocaml
being some of my favorites. Again, these are not things I
have used professionally so maybe it's just another example
of "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence".
To summarize, I want to continue developing software but I
would like to stop focusing so much on "devops" and I would
also like to move away from web-based application
development. I think systems level programming would be
great, although that may only be something I can do as an
open-source contributor. I also enjoy the idea of writing
indie games (I used to play with XBox development around
2009/2010) and doing hobby projects with microcontrollers;
especially in relation to homesteading.
Speaking of homesteading, but without going into too much
detail, there are other ways of either making money or
decreasing expenses. Some of these can be done together,
with my family. That is also something I have been
day-dreaming about since ~2010. Today, we are much closer to
making that a reality. Compared to the last decade, that is
an entirely different domain.
5. Writing
If you have made it this far, I am both surprised and
grateful. However, you are also probably surprised that I
would include writing as a career goal. This piece is very
raw; probably zero-to-nil editing by the time you see it;
and straight from the heart. I'm literally writing it line
by line in emacs using a console on sdf.org and not
scrolling back. I may run a spellchecker and look for
obvious issues. I would not consider myself a good writer,
by any means. I do enjoy writing and was successful with
every writing class I had through my elongated time in
college. I don't believe my writing is *bad* -- but it is
not something I do often, it is not something I am putting
any high level of effort into, and it is definitely not
something I have turned into a craft.
Last week, I was wrapping up a large thing at my corporate
job. The last peice, before sending out an announcement
email, was to write some documentation around it. No big
deal; I spent a couple of days and wrote some pretty good
(starter) docs, or so I thought. My director decided to talk
to me when I asked why I wasn't supposed to send out an
announcement email about the big thing I had spent months
bringing to fruition. During that somewhat awkward but
beneficial conversation, he said something that struck out
at me. "No offense, but I am a much better writer than you"
-- and he volunteered to rewrite the documentation.
That struck a nerve but only reinforced what I already
knew. I have been wanting to write more since 2018. I am
sure I can, and always will, improve. I do not just want to
write corporate documentation or these posts. I want to
spend time and put together quality pieces of literature
where I can share my 13+ years of experience and knowledge
with others. When I go down these rabbit holes of
exploration or decision making, I want to share that
information. I don't want to limit myself to simply text,
although I do believe it to be the best medium for myself. I
am also interested in producing content in other mediums
that folks enjoy, be it video or audio.
I don't know how or what I will write, exactly, but for now
I am doing it under a pseudonym until I get more comfortable
with it. I don't have a group of people I can rely on to
give me feedback before publishing anything so I'm just
going to make it a fun experience and try to learn from it.
With all of that said, I think I will end this here. I did
not come into this with an outline of what I wanted to talk
about but I feel good about sharing with the world my career
goals and lifestyle ambitions. It's definitely not
minimalist, by any means. This is really just a stream of
thoughts. If you got this far without skipping to the end,
I hope it somehow was useful, entertaining, or maybe even
relatable.
