2014 has been interesting. 2013 kind of sucked. 2014 has been the year that I rebuilt, hopefully giving myself a solid foundation to thrive in 2015.
I finally left my corporate job – something I started thinking about and planning for in 2013. Part of the plan was building my profile outside of a conglomerate, so I started speaking in again, going from being a complete (and terrified) unknown to sometimes even getting paid to speak. It’s been pretty exciting, and related to that, my friend Chiu-Ki and I launched a newsletter, Technically Speaking. I also got paid for my writing for the first time (thanks, Model View Culture).
I didn’t travel that much, and I didn’t go to Tuvalu, but I did go to some new places – Sweden, Romania, and Dubai. I rage quit dating, but maybe it’s time to revisit that decision in 2015.
Coming in 2015… we’re launching our app Show and Hide on iOS. My AOSA book chapter is coming out. I’m moving to Berlin for a couple of months.
Above all, the last quarter of 2014 has been a fantastic period of adventure and learning for me. I’m happier, becoming a better developer, a better writer. I hope that this will continue in 2015. Thanks everyone who has been part of this, and encouraged me, or just followed along.
This site had over 45k unique visitors (more than double last year).
Most Popular Posts from 2014
1. The Day I Leave the Tech Industry: I wrote about that feeling of knowing that your time in the tech industry is running out.
2. Male Allies and GHC: Before GHC (Grace Hopper Conference) I wrote about some of the reasons why I was concerned about the male allies panel, and some thoughts about easy, moderate and hard problems in addressing diversity.
3. Some Things I’m Tired Of Hearing From Men About Women in Tech: A list of things that men keep saying about the lack of women in the tech industry, and why they are wrong.
4. Process, and Culture: Good process is invisible, so we call it culture instead.
5. Your Guide To Undermining Women Whilst Being “Nice”: A list of undermining behaviours exhibited under the pretext of being “nice”.
6. Reasons Why It’s Hard to Find Senior Women Engineers: Much of “diversity” is focused on pipeline work, and specifically recruiting new grads. It’s harder to find senior women engineers, I wrote some thoughts about why. This post resulted in me meeting some awesome women in London, which was amazing.
7. Tweeting Shit That Men Say: Reflecting on what happened at GHC, male allies, and empathy.
8. Another Rant About The “Pipeline”: I’m really tired of people saying the problem is that not enough women graduate from CS in university so I keep ranting about it.
9. A Small Internet Kerfuffle: Reflecting on the content of the male allies panel at GHC, and how it compared to expectations.
10. The Pipeline is a Bullshit Argument, and Other Rants: My first pipeline rant.
Most Popular Posts from Before 2013
1. Interviewing at Google: My prep list for technical interviews.
2. Jawbone UP vs Nike Fuelband: I destroy wearables so you don’t have to – reflections of 18 months of activity tracking.
3. Unfriending on Facebook: From long ago, but I guess people are still worrying about being unfriended/how to unfriend.
4. Extracting the Dominant Color from an Image in Processing: One of the early posts in what became my book chapter and Show & Hide.
5. The Disillusionment of the Early Career Engineer: The feelings of disillusionment and feeling trapped arising in high-potential engineers who find their first job doesn’t match up to expectations (or internships).