2024: Career Review

This year is different. I haven’t been employed for 10 months. But I’ve not been idle either.

Milestones and moments:

1. I left Thoughtworks
   I had not wanted it to end though. I liked the culture, where developers were treated as the most important employees, and up-skilling was a high priority. I liked being in the presence of so many smart people. It made me a better person just by listening to them talk to each other.

   But life rarely works the way you plan it. I moved to the US to be with my wife, and I had to resign. My biggest regret - not being able to work with more than one client in my entire 4 years there.

2. I do not have a mentor for the first time in my career.
   A side effect of being unemployed. I had had always had one, even when I had become the Team Lead. Now, while I’m waiting for a new beginning in a new company, I don’t really have anyone. I guess it doesn’t matter that much, since I’m sure to find one again. But I think this thought matters to me because I felt sad when I had to say goodbye to my last mentor, who had left TW just before I did.

3. AWS Certification
   Now that I had left the bubble of Thoughtworks and the tough client (who will continue to not be named), I needed to work on things that were in high demand in the industry. I decided to go for an AWS Developer Associate certification, since that was the buzzword I had heard most while at Thoughtworks, and also many people seemed to be getting jobs with that.

   I spent 4-5 months studying for it. It was a lot to absorb. Even after 5 practice papers and maybe a few hundred questions, I couldn’t get more than 85%. There was so much to learn, and a lot of it could be acquired through real-world experience only.

   But, I got it. And just in time - I also got my work permit approved in the same week.

4. The US dev job market is a nightmare.
   I didn’t believe it when I read on Reddit how people applied to 500+ companies without getting an offer. Surely it can’t be that bad? I had cracked my very first application and interview every time I looked to switch in my career back in India!

   But it was bad. I stopped keeping a track of the companies I had applied to - I was so fed up. Some companies responded with a rejection 4 months later, while others instantly rejected my resume within minutes.

   I have applied to 300+ companies so far, out of which I got just 7 interviews. Referrals didn’t help either. Microsoft, Netflix, Airbnb, Amazon - all rejected my resume. I was sure that I would at least get an interview and dazzle them with my System Design skills.

   My confidence wavered. I was second-guessing myself. For example,

   • I decided to redo my resume in the boring format with Latex, in case it was getting auto-rejected by some tool.
   • I created multiple resumes, for Frontend, Fullstack and TL roles.
   • I was told by multiple people to emphasize my technical skills more, and my TL responsibilities less. What the hell! It was the opposite in India.

   Out of the companies I did get interviews with - IBM, Nike, Amazon (on the 7th try) and Clipboard Health - I was rejected in the first round. And here I met my next roadblock. One I had been avoiding for 9 years.

5. DSA
   I had tried to study it multiple times over the years, but always found it too difficult. Over time I decided that it was no longer important, because a good company would value the TL skills I have, and the huge tech stack I’ve worked with.

   Nope. First off, there are very few TL roles available. And of the few, many jumped straight to Principal Engineer. And almost all the junior and senior levels roles required DSA knowledge. I didn’t even bother applying to the ones that said DSA was mandatory.

   After 5 months, I decided I could no longer avoid it. I decided to take a paid course, practice some Leetcode, and get to applying to a lot more openings.

   And that’s where I am right now. I’m doing a 5 course series on Algorithms over 4 months on Coursera. Let’s see where it gets me. On the plus side, I at least understand everything now, apart from the insane theorems in the CLRS textbook. I've already passed the first course with 99% grade.

6. I’ve decided to make a niche for myself.
   This came through multiple motivations. First, I had a lot of free time now, and I didn’t want to spend all of it studying for interviews. Second, I still don't have much of an online reputation as a developer. Third, there are a lot of things to learn in the developer space. Fourth, I had been writing ideas for years on things I could build, but never found the time.

   And so, the niche is this: Build a product that I or someone else would actually use. Make it like a real product that can be shipped. And build it using a language, framework or tool that’s famous but I've never used before. When I'm done, write about how I built it, and repeat the process with a new product.

   In this way, I learn a ton of stuff, I finally get to work on my ideas, and I get to be known as ‘that guy who always builds stuff’. Maybe at some point I can even learn stuff like mechanical design, and combine it with coding.

7. What has come out of the niche so far.

   1. An API written in Golang, to simulate Materia Fusion from Crisis Core.
      I am super proud of this. In the big picture, this is a very basic GET api with a ton of if-else conditions. But it’s my first ever project that took several weeks to complete. And it’s in a shippable state, ready to be used by others.

      • Github link
      • Building an API with Go, PostgreSQL, Google Cloud and CockroachDB
      • Everything I learnt while building an API tool

      In the process, I strengthened my Go knowledge and learnt how to use a Cloud service (Google), how to use PostgreSQL (a big mental block), and a Cloud DB service (CockroachDB).

   2. A NextJS fullstack website, to showcase hikes and travels done by my wife and I.
      Another project I’m very proud of. Because my wife and I will actually use this. She is the primary consumer of this app.

      As of this writing, the desktop version is ready, and the mobile version is in the works. I don’t think I’ve done a great job with the UX. And I’m not sure how much I need to learn to get good at it.

      • Github link

      Through this I learnt NextJS (and about Vercel, the geniuses who made React fullstack) and, very importantly, Typescript. And I got to use Notion API as well, where all the data is stored.

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Notable firsts:

1. Experienced the nightmare job market in US.
2. Learnt and used Cloud services.
3. Got a certification that actually matters in the industry.
4. Contributed significantly to open-source. https://github.com/Buzzpy/Dev-Encyclopedia (At the time of writing, I’m credited as the top contributor by the owner).

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New things learnt:

1. AWS. I’ve only scratched the surface though.
2. Google Cloud.
3. CockroachDB.
4. Basics of PostgreSQL.
5. Typescript. Again, just the surface.
6. NextJS.
7. AstroJS.
8. Open Graph meta tags.
9. Entity tags.
10. A shit ton of DSA stuff.

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Reflections:

1. Knowing what I know now after 6 months of job hunting, I would’ve studied DSA first before the AWS certification.
2. Taking this long a break from my career has made me truly appreciate that a job is a just a job, and money can be obtained through other sources too.
3. It’s hard to stay motivated for months when you have no concrete goals or deadlines. It requires constant discipline to keep building towards something.

My plan for 2025: Get a job. Work on side projects. Write. It’s about just getting my life in order. No grand ambitions for the first time.