Life update, 2024 & 2025
Last year passed in a jiffy lot of changes happened in life and work. I used to write a yearly review for every year since 2020 but couldn’t write one for 2024. Me and everyone else at home fell sick since new year and took couple of weeks to recover, now it is too late for last year review anyway.
2024
In short, 2024 was good. I moved away from Angular into React and Node. I worked on a few projects based on NestJS and NextJS and also some legacy application based on CRA. I also worked with Tailwind and loved it. I read a handful of books and but watched more movies and series this year.
In the last couple of weeks of December, I did something with Python building a desktop PDF viewer that integrates with our web application. It was one of the looming unknows we had in that project. We considered paid solution but everything available was a subscription. Me and the UI team tried some web solutions but those weren’t satisfactory. The python team came up with some basic working version of it, I immediately realized that was it, but no one in our team has build desktop apps before.
Naturally, I was drawn to that problem and started with Python and Tkinter. Within 3 to 4 days, I was able to get the app working as a standalone app in Windows and mac and also finished the protocol registration so that web browser could invoke the desktop app. Normally it would’ve taken at least a few weeks for me to do it, but Cursor has been insanely helpful and let me finish it very quicker. Its been a while since I was excited and proud about something and 2024 ended on that high note.
2025
The plan for me to do in 2025 is to learn Cloud (AWS) and Golang. I also want to build at least two projects with PostgreSQL because I’ve been hearing wonderful things about it. I want to write more and consume less blog posts, but that is becoming increasingly difficult nowadays due to the wonderful RSS feeds I collected. :)
Another plan I have for this year is to build lot of useless, fun stuff. I learned programming only by reading docs, code and trying to build something and failing. As I gained more experience added to the stress of work projects, I stopped building the useless stuff. Also as someone who writes code full time, you gain the sense of a professional: You always see the waste of time, resources and the limitations before ever building something. I’m trying to shake that off and trying to be like a beginner.
Currently, I’m brushing up on React fundamentals because I never actually spend time learning it except working on projects. I will be starting Go in the coming weeks and try to build some stuff and post the progress here.
Work update
Perhaps, the biggest change happened to me in 2024 is that I left my job from Agira technologies on December 31st. I have mixed feeling about leaving that position after 7 long years of mutually beneficial employment. I had a lot of perks, freedom, good compensation, and decent amount of influence over the team. But I’ve also grown very comfortable there that I felt I have stopped growing altogether there.
I am currently open to work, looking for Fullstack developer roles. I am not limited to any tech stack, I have experience with Angular, React, Laravel, Node, Flutter, and some Rust. I’m preferably looking to get into product roles because I have only worked for software agencies so far. While that experience helped me to learn multiple tech stacks, I want to move over to product companies where what we do is not directly limited by the billable hours constraint. If you have an open role or want to refer, here is my resume.
