The latest articles on DEV Community by Heath Daniel (@hedwardd). https://dev.to/hedwardd https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F659445%2F46f4c011-c752-42b2-8522-383fde9e61a2.png https://dev.to/hedwardd en Heath Daniel Tue, 06 Jul 2021 23:08:39 +0000 https://dev.to/hedwardd/my-story-and-first-ever-blog-post-ever-1ja4 https://dev.to/hedwardd/my-story-and-first-ever-blog-post-ever-1ja4 <p>Hi there and welcome to my first ever blog post (ever).</p> <p>Full disclaimer, I'm mostly writing this to get more comfortable with writing, specifically writing publicly, though hopefully there will be something relatable or of interest to you.</p> <p>While I've had aspirations to start sharing some of the cool ideas and things I've learned for a while, I found it quite difficult to actually start. However, thanks to Ken Rogers' "Launch Your Dev Career" program, I've been forced to finally start by writing out my journey in becoming a developer. So here goes...</p> <h3> What I was doing before </h3> <p>I'll work backwards. Before deciding to become a developer, I was a product manager at a govtech startup. Before that, I was a customer success manager. Before that, I briefly did sales and before that I taught English in Thailand.</p> <h3> Why I got into coding </h3> <p>I've been somewhat into coding since I was a kid. Thanks to my dad, when I was little I told people I wanted to be a computer programmer when I grew up (even though I didn't know what that meant). I did, however, play a <em>lot</em> of videogames. Since many of those videogames were pirated, I had to get comfortable running applying patches and debugging when those patches didn't work.</p> <p>Other than that, the only other early experience I had was when my dad gave me a book on Visual Basic in middle school, though I didn't make it far (the thing was in black and white and I had videogames).</p> <p>Things picked up in high school when I took Intro to Programming and later AP Computer Science. Of all the classes that I took, I think I really liked those because of the satisfaction that it was pure logic and the computer always did what you told it.</p> <p>In college, I moved away from coding and decided instead to major in psychology. I think it was partially because it was new and partially because everything seemed inherently interesting.</p> <p>It wasn't until after college (while I was teaching in Thailand) that I encountered behavioral economics, now my favorite branch of psychology. That's also when I learned that all of these fascinating psychological factors turn up everywhere in daily life, a perfect example of which is the power of UX design.</p> <p>I realized that tech and psychology are inherently involved and that I could leverage technology to have a real effect on bettering people's lives.</p> <p>That was when I decided to move back towards tech (and coding) and have slowly been making my way back. After doing sales and product management, I just missed getting my hands dirty and doing the actual deep work, which is why I'm moving back into it now.</p> <h3> What am I working on now? </h3> <p>Right now, in addition to some freelance jobs here and there, I'm working on revamping my portfolio site (<a href="//heathdaniel.com">heathdaniel.com</a>). I initially used a template (which now feels a bit cheap) and am working on rebuilding the whole thing (adding pages to explain my projects, an actual contact form, etc).</p> <h3> What are my goals? </h3> <p>My #1 goal is to deliver value to people. I want to know that my work is contributing to making the world a bit better for other people. More specifically, I want to get really good at crafting modern and thoughtful user experiences.</p> <p>Thanks for reading my first blog post ever! Definitely leave a comment if you found anything in particular interesting, relatable, or generally comment-worthy 🤓</p> career watercooler