1 About

I want to make this an annual thing. I already have my regular blob posts, but here I will answer a series of questions based on a questionnaire I had answered in the past.

I think I see some typos from the previous years, but I'll let those go for now…

2 Reflections

Is your job confusing? Do you ever ask questions about what you need to do at work?

I ask questions, but I don't have any specific or general confusion. Most of the work I have done over the last year I would describe as as-needed, as-assigned, or ad-hoc. But for the vast majority, I enjoy the tasks I have to work on and I know how to do the work I have been assigned to.

What training did you participate in this year? In what ways was it helpful?

The most significant thing, I participated in exercises on cleancoders.com, some of which are also on YouTube for gratis. Robert Martin, their spokesperson, is one of the most influential software engineers/developers in the world. Doing these exercises has had a positive effect on my architectural choices over the last year. I get a lot out of helping my peers and critiquing their code, but working on exercises and watching others code with vastly different or more experience gives me a well rounded perspective.

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

Sometimes these are the same thing. Some of the code I maintain I wrote five or more years ago. The challenging part, which is also fun, happens when I try to figure out how to make the best positive change in the shortest amount of time. Sometimes this leaves out a better change that might have taken more time. Making these decisions is probably one of the things in my job that I have the most autonomy over.

In some cases, these decisions involve an open source project that I wish had a feature that it lacked. So in my own time, again this is something I have autonomy over, I have been able to implement those features or discuss with the developers of those projects to implement them.

What would help you to work more collaboratively in your work environment?

If I think back over the last year and the year before, the direct collaboration has absolutely increased when it comes to python development. We have a weekly check-in meeting, effectively a stand-up meeting, directly related to collaborating on the same, shared, or related projects with our integrations and web APIs. More of this collaboration, cross-training, and stand-up meetings would help.

When you need direction or information, are you able to get the help you need?

When it comes to business knowledge, overwhelmingly, yes, I can get the help I need. The folks I work with almost always have the missing pieces when I need to know more.

Are there aspects to the job you feel you need to work on?

There is always room for self-improvement. Off-the-clock, I am active in the free software/open source community and the local academic community. I spend a lot of my time keeping up on new trends, but I also focus on the solid foundations of computing such as those that came out of the 1950s.

In terms of the time spent on-the-clock, time for focusing on tasks and cross-training can both improve quality by reducing distractions and diversifying perspectives. There are still some duties of mine that only I work on, so it would be nice to work together to see some of those benefits.

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

Again, I still plan on eventually re-pursuing a PhD in computer science, once things settle down a bit. 2020 and 2021 have been very atypical years.