Summary of 2020
Intro
Starting from this year on I’ll try to make a post per year with summary of my personal and professional important events within the year.
2020 highlights
- Finished application for a factoring company
- SARS-CoV-2
- Changed team and position at work
- I’ve started learning Russian
- I’ve build a PC
- Całka died
- My daughter was born
Finished application for a factoring company
In April 2020 I’ve finished working on the project for a factoring company. The main goal of the project was to build an application for calculating some specific formulas and models for risk management. This project was special for me because it was mine project. I was the manager, developer, PMO and tester. I’ve designed the database. I’ve gone through all historical data and I’ve studied legacy models and calculations. I’ve sketched core of the application and I’ve implemented most of the functionalities. Rest of functionalities was implemented by two interns and one junior dev under my supervision. I was also the one responsible for the communication with the client.
As one can expect it was a bit too much. I’ve spent many nights and few weekends to meet the hard deadline but I’ve done it. After that I said “never again” and I’ve changed teams at work. I learned a lot but the price was too high. Especially with the one-year-old boy at home.
SARS-CoV-2
Coronavirus pandemic globally was the most significant “event” of the 2020. About March-April number of cases in Poland started to grow. Just before April I’ve moved into home office. Till today I still work from home. For me personally it wasn’t any inconvenience due to my IT related position.
Home office was especially useful after my second child was born in October. Not wasting time and effort for commuting to the office was a big advantage.
Luckily I haven’t got any symptoms of COVID-19 and neither anyone from my closest family.
Changed team and position at work
Starting from May I’ve pivoted to Senior Backend Engineer in a team responsible only for developing system applications. Before this transition I had many roles. I had been doing what needed to be done in area of financial risk management including data mining, testing, modelling and programming in general. All of this hidden under a broad title Senior Associate.
In 2019 I’ve decided that system programming using statically typed and compiled languages is what I want to do. After the transition daily average time of meetings went from four hours to half an hour. Stress level also decreased mostly due to fact that now I don’t have direct contact with clients. I’m just a programmer. Nevertheless I’m doing interesting things around interesting people but with better work-life balance.
I’ve started learning Russian
In about June 2020 I’ve started to learn Russian using Duolingo app. At the beginning I’ve performed 135 days strike (consecutive days with at least single lesson a day). I’ve got 5-10 days break and at this moment I’m over 100 days strike. I’m glad I’ve developed a habit of learning or at least memorizing Russian every single day. I hope I’ll keep it up in 2021.
Я надеюсь хорошо говорить по-русски в 2021 году.
I’ve build a PC
At the end of September 2020 I’ve build a mini ITX PC by myself..
Całka died
On October 17th my beloved cat Całka has died.
My daughter was born
In October my second child and the first daughter was born. At the time my oldest son was almost two years old. For me and my wife it was (and still is) very challenging situation which requires a lot of patience, strength and motivation. After almost three months I see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Due to COVID-19 pandemic restriction I couldn’t be in the hospital during and after the birth but fortunately it went very smooth without any problems.
Summary of 2020
It was for sure the one year which was the most different from previous ones. Mostly due to the whole global COVID-19 pandemic and its implications.
In general I think it was a good year for me. I’ve changed my career. I’ve been working from home most of the year. My daughter was born. I’ve started developing Home Database. I didn’t catch COVID-19 (at least without symptoms). So far, so good. Looking forward into 2021!