2020 Goals
In 2019 I fell into a position as a Virtual Software Developer II with Amazon. It was thoroughly unexpected since I did not even know that Amazon had positions like this, and I was excited at the opportunity when the recruiter who reached out to me told me about it.
I had interviewed and received offers from Amazon twice prior, and both times I felt like the pitch was for a startup, but without the opportunity for explosive career growth and learning hands-on that I would be able to get elsewhere. In retrospect I still think these were the right decisions, but now my self-learning capabilities are far better than they were previously and I am ready to jump into a more independent role.
So the job sounded good (it did the last two times as well). The real thing that pushed me over the edge on going with Amazon this time is that I met with a director of the department I was joining and they had both great insight and thoughtfulness about the people who are impacted by our systems. Typically when I meet with people, they are excited about what they are working on – so meeting someone who also appreciate the consequences of what they were working towards had an impact on my decision.
Since then, so far so good. My team is much smarter and collectively reliable for making reasonable decisions without being watched closely. The things we build are moving in the right direction though we have a ton of work to due, in addition to cleanup due to past ignorance (and un-thoughtfulness).
Coming into 2020 I want to be healthier, I want to continue any career momentum I have garnered and push forward with a stronger home life as well as more clear communication channels at work. Since I have moved home in 2019 I have not fully capitalized on the increased exposure to my (large) family. In 2020 I will work towards rectifying that.
Cheers to a very clear 20/20 (ha!)