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2023

It was a year of wrapping up a major project I've been working on for several years. Nothing is, of course, ever truly finished in software, so "fully released" is maybe a better choice of words.

In 2023, I was also part of starting a new, presumably soon-to-be megaproject. This led to me switching jobs.

See this tweet

My new employer is an early-stage startup. I have never been on one, so I wanted to know what that is like. We are a close-knit team, quite different from the 100+ member projects I began my career with.

Before fully committing to the new one, I juggled two jobs for six months. I was a (primarily) mobile developer by day and transformed into a web developer by night (actually, I did most of the coding on weekends). My first assignment was related to setting up the frontend, which I ended up doing with NextJS + Tailwind + shadcn/ui combo. 

My working days have changed dramatically. Earlier in the year, I worked on a reasonably stable and mature organization with an established process providing the basis for us in the software team to do sufficiently good quality work without too much time pressure. 

Now, the pace and focus are different, and for good reasons. We keep the iteration speed fast to try out new ideas rapidly. We gradually understand more what our product should be like and adjust accordingly. Fortunately (or unfortunately 🤔), we do not yet have to satisfy groups of customers, each calling after diverse features which give us an edge on the competition against the giants.

My new role is pleasantly varied. I do not work exclusively on the frontend anymore. On a given day, I might work with Terraform in the morning, K8s helm charts after lunch, and finish the day with some UI polishing work. Sprinkle around a couple of one-to-one sessions with team members where we bounce ideas around, and that is my day!

Some highlights include the experience of building a GitOps way of working. We are still in relatively early phases, but most of the infra and deployments are managed declaratively in git.

As a final pat on my own back, Turso CTO Pekka Enberg tweeted the tech talk I held in April about SerenityOS, and the YouTube recording got a nice amount of views for what it is.

Some non-work-related highlights.

I attended four jazz festivals. The most memorable was Valtteri Laurell's "Tigers Are Better Looking" record, which I had on repeat and enjoyed live not only once but twice!

Another unforgettable performance was from Ronald Langestraat at the Odysseus festival in Helsinki, set against stunning seaside views.

I bought (or technically leased) an electric bike for the winter, and while it is a bit of a luxury item, it has been pretty nice. I plan to write about my experiences with it as a winter commuter later in the year.

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