Me 2.0
I have had a very rewarding, but not fully satisfying, career as a programmer over the last decade. After a few varied jobs and a stint consulting, mostly for the finance industry, I landed a great job. I was working at a not-for-profit and able to do as I please with my chosen technology all while getting good benefits and pay. The job had a warm fuzzy feeling when I told people about it and I was proud to help facilitate change. To some it would sound like a dream job; it was a job my father’s, or maybe my grandfather’s, generation would have retired from. But I was not among my geek peers. Every day I spent there a little piece of curiosity inside me died, and it had been four years. There were a few things I felt I needed to do: 1) Meet more people like me, 2) learn some really new technologies and 3) Create something I could be proud of. I had decided I did not have enough time or energy to do this as a nights and weekends project and took the leap of faith, so a little less than a year ago I quit that job to start work on a new project, Me 2.0. I wanted to be a better programmer.
Meeting more people like me was the easy part. The first step I took was going to Meetups. There was one in particular, the Dumbo TECH Breakfast, that I had always wanted to go to, but was unable to because I had a 9-5 job. It was invigorating, there were other people who were not afraid to strike out on their own and loved technology; I belonged, this was an encouraging sign. I continued to go to mostly Brooklyn based meetups because, well, I live in Brooklyn and want to work here too. I concentrated on good communities, not the technologies, as I felt I could learn online and the depth of understanding you get from an hour presentation is usually fairly basic (although I did find some exceptions.)
Next I started learning new languages, self imposed programming boot camp I called it. I decided I would learn Ruby on Rails first because that’s whats a lot of NYC startups are using. By now I was also co-working at LooseCubes after learning about them at a meetup (Brooklyn Tech and Startup Meetup) and was working alongside developers, among other disciplines, which was important motivation. I started by buying a few books and implementing a simple idea I had, GetOnTheLeaderboard.com. It was a site where you registered to get on the leaderboard and had to tweet to stay on top. It was senseless and served no real purpose. It was a perfect learning project. I went on to do another few Rails projects, one of which, BrooklynCoded.com, I am still working on. It was rewarding and, given the time, I was learning fast. Yet, I was still in my comfort zone, doing what I knew I could. After six months things were getting a little stagnant again, it was time to step it up.
Enter Hacker School. It all started simple enough, I was at one of my favorite meetups (Hack and Tell) and someone got up and plugged a school of sorts where they would help good programmers become great programmers. Myself, having programmed for a while tend to shy away from labels like great, as I know there is so much more to learn, and at first I was a little skeptical; However, the cost, free, was enticing and it seemed like a good opportunity to continue what I was already doing with others who had the same goals. A member of the first batch and friend gave it a glowing endorsement and I was convinced. First I had to apply which was really just a few conversations. In the end I guess they thought I was reasonably smart and wanted to learn as I was accepted and for the next three months I would dedicate myself to their 4 day a week 8 hour a day schedule to make myself a better programmer. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
First, let me just get this out of the way. While I tend to not use adjectives like great to describe programmers, this program was, well, great... awesome, all those words that we tend to overuse are not overused when describing my experiences with Hacker School. I was forced out of my comfort zone. I re-discovered learning with people, I contributed to an exciting open source project (Brubeck.io), and created my first real time web application with a fellow hacker. I owe an immense thank you to Nick, Dave, Sonali and all my fellow Hacker School attendees and alumni for all their support and selfless sharing.
It is sad to see the three months gone, but my time at Hacker School is not over, it is just reduced, because as the Hacker School motto goes, “never graduate.” I continue to expand on work done there and should soon be releasing a Spotify chat client (SpotiChat.com) using the chat server I worked on while in Hacker School and continue to be involved with Brubeck. To say it changed my life is an understatement, it is still changing my life. I imagine it is the same feeling you get from going to a great university, or challenging MBA program, and I am sure it will pay the same long term rewards.
So, after my 9 months, am I satisfied? Will I ever be satisfied with my career? I hope not, it is lack of full satisfaction that keeps us curious, keeps us growing. Maybe when I am 80 I will look back with satisfaction, but that is all I can really hope for. For now I must be partially satisfied because I am happy with my career, and that is the most important thing. I do what I love, what excites me, and that is not something everybody can say. Me 2.0 will be replaced by Me 3.0 someday, but for now there is a lot left in this version. My reboot is done, I have become a better programmer, time to kick some ass and create more things I can be proud of!
