DEV Community: YuanHao Chiang

I quit my job as an Engineering Manager to be an Entrepreuneur (again)!

YuanHao Chiang — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 03:15:26 +0000

It's been a month since I quit my job as an Engineering Manager to be an entrepreneur again.

I was working remotely.
I had flexible hours.
My pay allowed me to save more than half of my income.

But I nevertheless decided to do it.

I was promoted to Manager in less than two years, from a Software Developer position and I was really excited about it, however I realized I fell into the Paradox of Success:

the success I built by working deeply as a Frontend/React developer on a codebase that served more than 100 million users was because I was able to be very productive with my time.

In my two years I contributed to more than 500 commits to production code, by far more than anyone else.

However, as a Manager, I was literally forced to attend many meetings where my contribution was less than 5 minutes out of the whole hour. Every day of the week, multiple times a week. We have a little one at home, and we all suffered the consequences of being so distracted and having to spend extra time to make up for all the shallow work. My mental and physical health was hitting rock bottom.

Now, fast-forwading to where I am, I am hurting from losing my income and taking over a behemoth of a project, but I am proud of what I did and working better than ever.

Physically, I'm feeling great and mentally slowly getting there (I have off days, but they are the no longer the majority of my days).

I've learned more than I would have if I didn't quit; I am currently reading an Advanced Mysql book (my weak point in CS so far) and working heavily on the Figma designs:

(Note: I am not a designer! So for me, simple designs like this are already a big milestone).

Now, if anyone asked me whether it makes sense or not to quit... I trully don't know, all I know is that it is important not to become more stressed.

We do have about 8 to 10 months saved in the bank.

It's not my first time as an entrepreneur on a big project, and funny enough it's the second time I quit my job at this company. But if anyone has experience being in a similar situation I'm happy to hear your thoughts and experience!

Currently reading:

"Essentialism" by Greg McKeown.
"Deep Work" by Cal Newport (reading of for the second time -- a must read for entrepreneurs!).
"High Performance MySQL".

Firefox's New Multi-Line Console Editor is Awesome

YuanHao Chiang — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 21:44:23 +0000

Firefox may no longer be the go-to browser for most developers.

However, those of us who were present in the First Browser War in the 90's remember Firefox —originally named Phoenix, born from the ashes of Netscape— as a strong contender for the Heavyweight Championship.

(spoiler alert: Firefox lost)

I still use Firefox (simultaneously with Chrome) since it has a special place in my heart, plus many nifty features that keep me coming back.

In particular, I am in love with their new multi-line editor:

To toggle it, find a tiny button hidden on the upper right corner of the console:

Ctrl+B (Cmd+B) will also work... if you still have any room in your brain to memorize one more shortcut

It was introduced last December and as a heavy console user (read: someone who is lazy to run node locally more often than not), it is a feature that caught my attention right away.

Here it is in action:

I am not ashamed to say that I need to review how to use Array.reduce() every two weeks.

Shortcuts are your allies here, Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter) runs the code snippet and Ctrl+Shift+K (Cmd+K) clears the console.

So what does it do that Chrome doesn't?

I mostly use the console to make sure that I test Stack Overflow answers properly (pro-tip: posting wrong answers on Stack Overflow will send your reputation down south very quickly).

If you use Chrome's console and need to edit a function or a snippet multiple times, you will need to juggle between Enter and Shift+Enter, something I don't find particularly pleasant.

You can also do multi-line snippets on Chrome creating a new snippet, or through third-party extensions, but so far I prefer Firefox's UI.

I have been using the console to run Leetcode exercises quickly, since their editor takes a bit of time to compile, and Firefox's multi-line editor is perfect for that.

In the end, Chrome satisfies my browsing and developer needs, but I am happy to see the latest trend in innovation and privacy from Mozilla.

Do you still use Firefox? Are there any features that keep you from forever uninstalling it? Let me know in the comments: 👇

👋👋 Follow me on Twitter if you enjoyed this post! I've been hiding under a rock for the last 10 years and I just joined Twitter. I would be happy to connect :)

Should I keep focusing on Front-End of shift to Back-End?

YuanHao Chiang — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 10:02:59 +0000

Background story: Recently I got a promotion (yay! 🥳), vouched by the VP, and one Director of Engineering praising me as the most knowledgeable, as well as the go-to dev, for anything related to React in our company.

Now, the question: if you were in that same spot, would you go all-in Front-End, or use that edge to invest time and energy to brush up the Back-End?