2020-10-31T00:00:00.000Z
That's when I started to write this post originally and oh has it been a long time since getting back to it. Let's run through some things quickly:
We've had three christmases, two kids, a promotion (SEI => SEII), a job change, a global pandemic (ongoing?), and a partridge in a pear tree.. wait scratch that last one. So a lot has happened, let's get into the two (three?) important items, kids and changing jobs, kids first.
Kids or something
The long and short of it is that in the summer of 2020 we had a son that brought into our lives continuous joy and chaos. The event was marked with difficulty being so isolated from friends and family geographically, but also from the inherent challenges of a soon to be global pandemic we've not seen in about a century. It was challenging but ultimately rewarding now that Lucas is much more of a person and less of a small accessory to be fed, bathed, and assisted off to dreamland; just yesterday he encountered his first tree frog and was absolutely ecstatic at how interesting and small it was. We can't wait to see what else he discovers and learns.
Our second was born much more recently, the last week of January, and was a few challenges. We had to be isolated from her for a few days, see no contact due to mom and son contracting COVID-19, while she had a stay in the NICU due to blood sugar regulation issues. Once that extremely, emotionally, challenging period was resolved, we had a new one to contend with: heading to the PICU due to an infection (probably MRSA) on her hand that required a few days to clear up with some pretty strong antibiotics, but we were able to have mom stay with her this time and I was able to visit every day to give mom some much needed sleep. Did I mention she didn't and hasn't taken anything other than a bottle since her NICU stay? Fast forward two months and she's at home cooing, smiling, and keeping us up at night; Lucas is immensely enamored by his little sister, asking at any opportunity "what's phia doing". I have to thank my mom, who will likely never see this, for staying with us for over two months working through this and handling Lucas every night; there is the old saying that it takes a village to raise a child, I believe is something that is slowly being forget in our society and how impactful a support system can be.
One minor note I would like to add while it still fresh: anyone that says childbirth, really the birth to 12months-ish, is a wonderful beautiful period needs to also express that it is likely going to be one of the most difficult periods of sleeplessness, stress, and anxiety you'll experience. Nothing like going to bed thinking "Is my kid going to aspirate in their sleep", "did I put them down correctly", or even "is their diaper too tight". A lot of that goes away on the second one, but there are lesser degrees of those feelings.
Out with the Old
In Summer 2021 I left my first job and first role as a software engineer at Starbucks after 14 years. This was an immensely challenging thing, partially due to the length of time and as my role as the primary earner but also the aspect was the, relative, safety of a stable job that had some good benefits. Leaving itself wasn't difficult as I had reached a point where I no longer felt like I was growing professionally, but the unknown of something new.
I had accepted an offer to join the startup Knock as a Software Engineer working on, what was known as the Knockstar (what we call ourselves) Experience, improving the internal architecture, what kind of information we serve up to other teams. Coming from a large slow moving organization, no different than other long lived and established companies, knock has been a wildly different experience and one aspect that I had struggled with for a while was the ability to just go do something. Need some changes on an API, go do it. Want to propose a different way of working, go do it. Want to discuss why we're doing something a particular way... you guessed it, go do it. Other than a some shuffling of the organizational structure of engineering teams, and a liberal reduction in staff, we working on a lot of interesting problems both from within and solving for the different products we have. I've been learning a bunch of things I wouldn't have been exposed to previously are starbucks due to the siloing/compartmentalization of different work streams and I am hoping to keep learning as we grow.
Signing off
I don't have much else to report, I'm sure I will come up. or remember, more to talk about later; perhaps focused on my HomeLab, VR, Games, or Software but until then.. 👋