What a year this was. I was going to say 'probably' the most productive of my career, but there's no 'probably' about it. This was the most productive year of my career, and maybe my life too. Since summer 2021 I had been working 2 jobs, and that job ended at the end of August. From there, I took some time to recover, about a month, actually that's not true. On the very day it was ending, a recruiter called me, for another position! I accepted since the pay was good. That started a month later, beginning of October. Since then, it's been a rollercoaster ride. I picked up another job, shortly after, at the same firm where the other job ended, but that didn't start until November. I also didn't mention the other job I do, working for another state agency, albeit part-time.
Backing up from the start of the year, at my original job, my previous manager got promoted, then I switched teams, and from there--got hired on full time. It's a state agency, and they've extended me full-time offers before, multiple times. Third time was the charm I suppose.
Workwise, it's good. I have more access than I did, and I'm learning about AWS over time, but that's not the main thing. From about February on, I've been collecting certifications, nailed down about five so far, all Microsoft, and for the most part--free. That's far from the extent of my learning. I've picked up these subjects:
- Power Platform
- Power Automate
- Power Apps
- Dataverse
- spFx (SharePoint Framework)
- ES6 JS (JavaScript)
- React
- AWS
- Azure
- Security basics
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) basics
and more, much more. After all of that, I'm finally "cloud-ready". It's amazing looking back at how much I did not know, and yet still, do not know. The difference is, now I know more of the modern landscape, and I've been upskilling like crazy, especially working 3.5 jobs as I do (second agency is part-time). As a result of all this training--I don't consider myself only a SharePoint expert anymore. I have valid, professional skills in the Power Platform now, and soon, DevOps too. More to come on that front. I've also become much more efficient w/ my time, which is a necessity when having deliverables for multiple jobs. I also realize tech is a moving target, and that's partly what makes it so interesting. Looking from when I started, a decade ago, to now, the industry has changed so much, it's almost unbelievable. DevOps, mainly, has accelerated everything to an incredible pace.
For a time, I considered getting more into AI, but after dabbling a bit, I'm just not feeling it overall. It is too data intensive and dealing w/ that aspect of tech doesn't interest me much. People who know it are a hot commodity though, understandably so. That's the future. What I'll do there is simply consume the end product, meaning products such as
ChatGPT, as well as the ones that already underlay our modern existence, and keep it moving.
Throughout all of that, which included some very long nights studying, and working as well, I
- Bought my first house
- Started a business (LLC)
- Traveled a bit (San Francisco & Seattle)
I likely bought a house at the worst possible time, during the crest of the home buying mania in the Valley, but after all was said and done-- I like having a house. You can do whatever you want w/ it. It was quite an interesting journey in the lead-up, saw some strange places and living situations.
Traveling to San Fran was cool, it was misrepresented in the media I read I believe. It was clean enough, and the places we went were interesting. Lots of history there. I had a lot of fun, and I have a sway
here, showing some of my experiences.
Seattle's vibe was also cool, a very musical city. I rode around in a rented Challenger, driving the roads, which, after the first night, surprisingly weren't rainy. I saw Dave Matthews there too, that was fun. The scenery is amazing of course, picture-perfect in certain places.
Aside from occupational knowledge, and a bit of travel, I learned some valuable techniques in my life, the two main being:
- The mind is more receptive to learning post-exercise than at any other point. I credit the book Spark, by Dr. John Ratey--link
- Learning or studying directly after a hard exercise session increases retention and improves test scores
- There's a like-minded community of people who work multiple jobs, called 'overemployment'.
- I've picked up quite a bit from them. My 'tech-setup', as they say, isn't half bad, three monitors and a KVM. If I add more jobs, I'll have to redo it, but no problem there.
Overall, it was a career year for me. I aim to keep it going. There's still more to do!
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