#+SETUPFILE: ../../../template/level-2.org
#+TITLE: Reflective Post
#+DATE: <2023-02-06 Mon 23:01>
#+AUTHOR: vaeringjar
#+EMAIL: vaeringjar@land
#+DESCRIPTION: Annual reflective q&a.
#+KEYWORDS: blogging


* About

Here goes another round. I have changed some of the questions and the
format to more of a q&a.


* Reflections

** Q1

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
Do you ever ask questions about what you need to do at work?
#+END_QUOTE

I ask questions all the time, but for the moment I think it's mostly
due to changing teams in November. I think there might still be some
things I am unsure about regarding the off-boarding from the previous
team, but we are still going through that process as well.


** Q2

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
What training did you participate in this year? In what ways was it
helpful?
#+END_QUOTE

I participated in more of the Clean Coders exercises (cleancoders.com)
which has helped me to keep my self-discipline sharp.

I also do my best to keep up with the profession in terms of reading
research articles and participating in the free software/open source
community.


** Q3

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
During the past year, what parts of your work gave you the most
satisfaction? What have you found challenging?
#+END_QUOTE

I enjoy bringing software projects up to best practices. Sometimes I
get to work on my own with iterations of improvement, but other times
I get to work on an existing project.

The most challenging parts, especially from this past year, have come
from working on projects where the project has no conventional way to
collaborate with the developers on the source. Many vendor products
that provide source code suffer from this. So it becomes a question
how to make the least changes possible rather than the best changes.


** Q4

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
What would help you to work more collaboratively in your work
environment?
#+END_QUOTE

After having changed teams in November, I can already tell that
working with on a team of peers that actively and regularly reviews
code and cross trains on duties is a net gain.

On a very high level, generally, I also think a more open stack would
help. I have never really been a fan of the term itself "full stack"
and this is not necessarily an endorsement of AWS: Having changed
teams so many times (whether de facto or de jure) over the last five
years, there's an observable difference in productivity when it comes
to full stack autonomy. I don't think this excludes specialization,
it's more about cohesive development within a team. That was the
reason why Amazon developed AWS, was the promote their internal
developers. And then it got mature enough they offered it to the
public. So aside from billing, network security, and DNS, the rest is
just computation. I think the workplace could learn a lot from this,
other than just becoming a customer. And this could also be achieved
w/o a cloud platform, so AWS isn't required. For me this would include a
standard for full stack development because at the moment it varies
from team to team, server to server, and in some cases, person to
person.


** Q5

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
When you need direction or information, are you able to get the help
you need?
#+END_QUOTE

For the most part my new team always has the answer. And for times
when they do not, we have worked together to fill in those gaps, which
I think probably have only occurred because of turnover.


** Q6

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
Are there aspects to the job you feel you need to work on? How can you
improve?
#+END_QUOTE

At this time I feel like I am still in the transition phase for
joining the new team. I will probably have more to say about this next
year.


** Q7

#+BEGIN_QUOTE
What goals and objectives do you have for your job or for future
development for the coming year?
#+END_QUOTE

As I have said previously, I still plan on eventually re-pursuing a
PhD in computer science, once things settle down a bit. The last few
have been very atypical years. Regardless of formal education, I plan
on continuing to expand my knowledge to improve the quality of my work
and hopefully make it easier.
