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I'm Not An Expert, A Year In Review

This year was a BIG one. There was a fundamental shift in how I viewed both myself and my work, and it has resulted in the maybe my favorite year of my life yet. What changed? Well, for one, the beginning of this year marked a personal milestone that sparked a lot of what came the rest of the year.

In February I hit my milestone to lose 100lbs. It was something I thought I would never do, and it came with a LOT of changes. Many positive, but also some that were challenging. Not going to dive in too deep here, but if you're interested I break down more of this story here.

This one milestone did more for me than anything I've done or achieved in the past 6-7 years. I felt energized and unstoppable, and right around this time something came floating around my feed that I thought, you know what, I think I'm perfect for this.

The Design Engineer position at Tailwind Labs. I have been a heavy user since it first came out, and the moment I saw the open position the high that I had been riding, that feeling of nothing being impossible meant there was no chance I wasn't applying for it.

I put a ton of effort into my application. A set of custom pages on my personal site specifically for this position, but even as I was building out the application I noticed something. It had been a long time since I did anything noteworthy.

I had to dig back into projects that were…geriatric is not the right word, but they weren't young and healthy either. A seed was planted that bore fruit around the time I got a response about the position. I was cut. I was weeded out even before the second round of interviews.

Not going to lie, this one stung. However, there was no one to blame other than myself. I had gotten complacent. Now, that may be a strong way of phrasing “I had a stable day job at an incredible company, with 3 beautiful children and the worlds funniest wife” buuut it was true. I had gotten content tackling tickets and projects at Crunchy and hadn't started anything new in an effort to grow for an embarrassing amount of time.

Now this may sound like I am being hard on myself, but it was less about beating myself up so much as it was me realizing a big part of why I chose my career and enjoy it was something I had lost.

I had settled into a senior role and told myself “I've made it” I was playing the role of The Expert™ when the reality is I have never been one. If/when I had something worth sharing in an effort to help others it didn't come from a place of expertise, but of excitement. Excitement that was a natural result of exploration. Of coming up with some crazy idea and seeing if I could make it happen. Rabbit holes as Ali calls them.

What I realized was I am not The Expert™, nope, couldn't be me. I am an explorer. This year it was time to get back to it, and boy did I..

That being said I am older now, wiser would be a stretch, but I didn't just go into it guns blazing. A good explorer isn't searching blindly, but with direction. I like the term Aaron Francis uses here, and I had some guidelines in mind:

  • Must be difficult, I had gotten complacent it was time to push myself.
  • Must be fun, money is not a required outcome let that go and choose things that will be exciting.
  • Must be noteworthy, I want to do cool things with cool people. Part of that requires me to be doing things people notice and find worth their attention.

So, with all of that in mind let's break down what I have explored this year, how true it was to these guidelines, and where it has landed as we wrap up 2024.

Craft Lab

The idea here was a community app for design engineers to chat, share WIP, and resources. There would be a lot of fun Easter eggs for the members and opportunity for members to participate in building the platform.

Status:

On Hold

Incomplete and on hold. It was missing the fun guideline. I still think some version of this idea would be great. I just don't think I have the right audience or recognition to make this work at a speed that makes it interesting to continue working on.

Outcomes:

There were quite a few pieces of building this out I really liked and grew trying to implement.

Design Engineer Mentorship

In the summer I thought I would be a good idea to try and find someone to mentor. To help them find success in the same path that I did mixing design and engineering.

Status:

Unsuccessful

Complete, but unsuccessful. I found a lot of interest, but time was an issue. Both on my side and the mentee side. It was very hard to coordinate. I found another rabbit hole I could continue to explore, but it is too focused on money as an outcome and at the moment does not tick the noteworthy requirement.

Outcomes:

I was able through this process to build quite a few good relationships and that is a win any day even if the project itself is defunct.

Crunchy Projects

As part of this new mindset I also brought it into my work at Crunchy Data. We had a number of good projects that putting extra effort into thinking through a new approach might benefit the final product.

Status:

Blessed

Happily employed. I am lucky to work with such a talented and smart team. I learn constantly from my coworkers. The product is mature in some ways and so ripe for growth and change in other ways. I have reached the point where code I have written is becoming the legacy code I am rewriting and it is a great time for personal growth during that cycle.

Outcomes:

Made For Me

I had a whole podcast episode about this idea. It is right down the path of something I believe strongly in.

Software is saturated. Distribution will only continue to get harder. Adding soul, something people can connect with, will be one path to solve that.

Status:

On Hold

On hold. I really think this is needed, but as I did more and more of the work to gather the directory I came across ideas and work that inspired me to build and not gather other people's ideas.

Outcomes:

This was my first project in Laravel and it brought me more and more into that community. It is a good one too. I got to test out Inertia as a React dev and it is very good.

Especially with the v2 release. While exploring one of my ideas for Easter eggs on the landing page I happened across THE project.

Building a TRPG in Gleam (aka THE project)

This has been the culmination of my exploration into work that checks every box I outlined at the beginning of this. I’m building a game engine from scratch…I think that checks the difficulty box. What could be more fun than being a designer and engineer building a video game? Not only that, but hopefully both from the technical side and the artistic side there will be plenty of noteworthy content. Either way I am so incredibly pumped about this project and cannot wait to continue building it step by step.

Status:

Ongoing

Very much in progress!

Outcomes:

Content

A huge part of being an explorer is the willingness to share work in progress. To share the unpolished and unsure parts of projects. To that end I made a focused effort and making more content of all kinds. Here are some of my favorites:

And a few times I was asked to be a part of others content goals:

The friends I made along the way…

This may be a classic cliche but it is the truth. I have made so many relationships this year that have completely changed my excitement and happiness in areas I had relegated to “the college days”. Close friendships with great people and the opportunities for them to grow even deeper in the future. I will not name names, but you know who you are.

On to 2025, every year will have its surprises, but I am positive it has a chance to be even better than this one.

I hope you enjoyed

There is a lot more coming...

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