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Cesar Aguirre
Cesar Aguirre

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My 2024 in Review—And My Most Read Posts

This is a submission for the 2025 New Year Writing challenge: Retro’ing and Debugging 2024.


If I had to define my 2024 in one word, it would be: Change.

In 2023, I got burned out and sick. And when I was laid off in early 2024, I felt both worried and relieved. Worried about not seeing a paycheck coming and relieved about not working on something that was making me sick. I needed some time off.

That layoff taught me valuable lessons about life, career, and money.

My coding side

2024 felt like a rollercoaster.

After getting laid off and sending dozens of applications, I decided to take some time off to take care of my health. A mini-retirement.

After the radio silence and a few "thanks, maybe later" replies, I started freelancing with a small software agency. That helped me stay afloat for a month or two without running out of savings.

In 2024, I doubled down on my online presence.

I created two video courses on Udemy: here and here. All the content and recordings were made by me. A human, not an AI. #madebyahuman

My career reflections

Being laid off gave me time to reflect on my career after over 10 years of non-stop work.

I created a 7-day email course to share the lessons I wish I had known to survive a career in software engineering. I share what I'd tell my younger self before starting his first professional coding job.

Last year the coding world went nuts when Devin, "the first AI software engineer," was released and I gave my predictions for coding in 2034:

If you're reading this from the future, let me know if I nailed it with my predictions. By the way, do you have flying cars or are you still dreaming about them?

And I moved my Monday Links series to an email list. Every other week, you won't get Monday Links, but Friday Links in your inbox. A short email with 4 curated links about programming. For free.

My most read posts

If you missed any of them, here are my five most read posts from 2024 here on dev.to:

Three of those four posts, except for the one about C#, were featured on the Top7 posts of the week. Thanks dev.to team. I count that as a win!

My writing side

I will remember 2024 as the year I went all in on my writing.

After writing for more than 5 years, I took my first writing class. That gave me momentum to keep the writing ball rolling.

After months of inactivity in 2023, I revived my LinkedIn account from Zombieland.

I challenged myself to write 100 short-form native posts. I started with 1 post a week, then 2, then 3... I doubled my follower count and had two or three "viral" posts. Those are vanity metrics, I know. But the main benefit? The fear of writing on social media is gone!

It turns out LinkedIn is not that cringy when you follow the right strategy.

Parting Thought

Taking some time off to take care of my health was the best decision I made in 2024. Being physically healthy spreads to all other areas of my life.

And definitely, Monday mornings don't feel the same when you wake up to do something you love.

Thanks for reading, and happy coding in 2025!


Join my email list and get a short, 2-minute email with 4 curated links about programming and software engineering delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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