Beginning

Let’s rewind the clock and dive into the whirlwind that was 2023 - an amazing and productive year for me for a lot of different reasons. Right after I completed my national service at ADB, I got my first software engineering job in November 2022. Started off as remote work for the first 2 and a half months before the startup got its own office space in early 2023. I was really excited for this opportunity because it was my first programming job.

I was still new to a lot of things in the software engineering field but I was ready for this. I started off as a frontend developer, the startup I worked for was pretty lean and with a lot of fresh graduates like myself. Yeah, we were ready to build the new facebook loool. I think everyone should have the experience of working in a startup at some point in their career. Here, I learnt a lot, from the other developers around and also the experiences I got working on projects and taking huge responsibility on them. It was not easy but yeah, I love coding and I wanted to learn. To be honest, it was challenging, but hey, that’s how you learn, right? I’ll admit, there were times I felt like I was doing a tightrope walk building components, handling responsiveness, and trying to wrap my head around React and JavaScript. And yeah, my first project was a very complex one, I had to do a lot of research and it was something in the medical field. Tough? Oh, absolutely. But I was determined to pull through.

I spent the first few months of 2023, just relearning some JavaScript and react concepts whenever I was not working in the office. Weekends became coding marathons, and my laptop was practically glued to me. Sure, I missed some family and friend time, but I had a mission – I felt I had a lot to learn and I wanted to be better. I also wanted to build mobile applications because that’s what got me really interested in software development in the first place. So yeah, I started off with a react native course, it helped me tons, I was able to build a few apps during the time I was learning, I was really excited at my progress. Work was getting stressful and all but I formed a few friendships with some colleagues at work, we shared our struggles together and we bonded well. This support network played a pivotal role in alleviating the stresses of my evolving career.

Halfway there

Fast forward to mid-2023, and I was getting the hang of things and I was slowly overcoming the imposter syndrome I had at the start of the year. I had new goals I wanted to achieve as well before the year ended and my projects at work were coming together as well. I developed a newfound interest in backend development, leading me to explore Node.js. I have to say I loved it, building services and systems that work behind the ui was so cool to me.

A little break away from all this work and programming talk, I had a little trip to the cape coast where I explored the kakum national park and walked on the canopy walk. It was really breathtaking, I got tired midway through and the ropes started to feel light. I also headed out to the Assin Manso Slave river site and the Elmina castle. I learnt a lot about the struggles of our people and well it was good to have some time away from my laptop. Took some really nice pictures as well.

July rolled around, and bam! I scored a promotion to full-stack developer, small victories, right? But it was a big deal for me, and I felt like I was finally being seen at work. Things were slowly coming together for me but I wanted more. Despite the triumphs, a growing desire for new challenges prompted me to seek opportunities elsewhere. Cue the job applications, rejections, and interviews. Fortunately for me, I got some options eventually and I really had to decide what the next path was for me and what was right.

Here we go

A fresh beginning for me in September because I secured a position as a software engineer at Zeepay in September—a move that aligned with my aspirations. I was so proud of myself because I worked for that, and I could see my progress. I have enjoyed it so far, got to learn a lot from my colleagues and the senior engineers at work. Having to be thrown deep in the end of projects as well has really toughened me up as I have got to learn quickly and build exciting projects. I took up the responsibility of building a system to manage the database for my church getting to the end of the year. To see my church be able to use it made me happy, and it has helped clean up and streamlined our db management.

My year was not short of fun, I had quite some fun in the last quarter. i could finally give myself that, I needed that too. Self-care, right? Now, as I gear up for 2024, I’ve got big plans – maybe some new hobbies like photography, journaling, and definitely more travels. Here’s to whatever 2024 has in store for me. Catch you later! Ciao…