December is here and 2022 is almost over. It has easily been the most eventful year of my life. I started by listing the major things that happened.

So… Am I a Developer Now?

The biggest change was landing my first developer job. I stumbled upon the SOCAR hiring session on Wanted in March, fell in love with the company, and impulsively applied.

At the time I was in the first semester of my senior year. I figured I would gain interview experience and fully expected a rejection. Instead, I got in—despite technically not meeting the “expected graduate” requirement. Thanks to SOCAR’s flexibility I joined the Data Platform team in June and have been happily working there since. The full story lives in my earlier post, New Developer Retrospective.

What was I thinking when I applied? Maybe I really was under a spell.

Collecting Certifications

One of my 2022 goals was to earn a certification. I passed the AWS Certified Solutions Architect exam in January. Apart from a typing certificate I earned in elementary school, it was my first official credential.

Did it help? Honestly… maybe. The biggest benefit was building confidence around AWS and diving deeper into cloud services on my own.

Graduating from University

As I write this, I’ve just finished my final exams for senior year. Thanks to an early-employment arrangement I didn’t study much (I just made sure to submit the exams), but walking around campus afterward felt surreal.

Despite the pandemic, college was packed with great memories: freshman year mischief, returning from military service and figuring out my path, falling in love with data and AI during junior year, and the present. I especially treasure the hackathons and contests where teammates and I pulled all-nighters in the club room. The tuition was expensive, yet those experiences were priceless.

From 2017 to 2022 I grew so much—it feels good to acknowledge that.

My First Talk?

Earlier this year a professor invited me to give an online talk about my Kaggle journey. About 20 students attended, asked questions, and kept the chat lively. Apparently the professor now uses the recording in class.

I’ve presented countless assignments for grades, but this was my first invitation-only talk. Next year I’d love to present about data engineering somewhere.

There were plenty of other moments, but writing them all down would take forever. At work we use the 3L format—Liked, Lacked, Learned—so I’ll borrow it here.

Liked

First and foremost, getting hired. Instead of coding alone in my room, I now collaborate with teammates and grow faster.

Honestly, my lifestyle didn’t change much—I already spent most of my time learning to code. The difference is that those hours now ship to production.

Lacked

I still feel lost sometimes. The world is vast and I’ve barely seen a tiny corner of it. There’s so much to learn.

I want to understand the big picture, yet I keep bumping into things I don’t know. That gap can be discouraging.

Voicing my opinions is another struggle. I’m afraid of being wrong, perhaps because I’m aware of how little I know.

Introverted, shy, type-A me—go figure.

Taking initiative remains hard. My teammates keep giving me chances to own things, but for now I’m more comfortable supporting others.

One day I’ll lead something end-to-end… right?

Outside of work, I desperately need exercise. After years of being underweight I recently discovered I’m close to obesity. Time to work out for real.

I also feel less driven than before. Once the “get a job” goal disappeared, my motivation dipped. Plenty more shortcomings exist, but if I list them all my confidence will tank—so I’ll stop here.

Learned

This section overlaps with the previous ones, so I’ll highlight the technologies I focused on this year.

At work I primarily manage the data platform infrastructure. Sometimes I wonder if I’m a data engineer or a cloud engineer.

• Cloud: Mostly GCP, with a bit of AWS. After six months GCP actually feels more comfortable than AWS.
• Kubernetes: My biggest study area—six straight months of hands-on work made us close friends.
• Programming languages: I started learning Kotlin (after brushing up on Java) for an internal study group and a side project. Python used to be my only language.
• Observability: Learned a lot about Datadog and the PLG stack.

I also dipped my toes into testing, GitHub Actions for CI, Argo CD for deployments, and many Helm charts.

Seeing the list of things I still don’t know reminds me there’s so much left to learn.

Goals for 2023

Time to set next year’s intentions.

1. One GitHub Commit a Day

My activity log thins out around June (when I started working). I had a brief stretch of green squares again, but it didn’t last. In 2023 I want a lush lawn.

2. Write More Blog Posts

I’m not a natural writer, yet the only way to improve is to keep shipping posts.

3. Attend Conferences

I attended one conference hosted by the Fake Research Lab and loved the experience. Next year I want to show up more, meet people, and hear their stories.

4. Network

This one terrifies me, but I’ll try to meet new people and have more conversations.

5. Have Fun

It sounds vague, but I plan to travel and step outside my room more. Time to explore the world a bit.

6. Drive

My license has gathered dust for four years. Time to hit the road—so I can travel more easily.

7. Exercise

Seriously this time. For health, not vanity.

Those are the goals. Here’s to working hard and making them happen in 2023.