A whole year of my life all buttoned up into shipping a single product.
I’ve tried to spend the better part of this morning thinking back through the last year, and everything that’s happened.
Coming to work at Presto, I made a decision to move into the roll of a software engineer—which is pretty different from everything that I’ve previously done. I’m a designer. I’m used to meeting with clients, and doing creative stuff. Sure, I can write a little code here and there… but doing that full time? I knew it would be hard, but I really had no idea what I was in for.
Design has always been kind of easy for me. Now, don’t get me wrong… I know I’m not the world’s greatest designer, but I know that at the end of the day, even if I don’t produce something spectacular, it will still be good, the client will be satisfied, and I won’t be embarrassed.
For the first time in 10 years, I’ve really been really challenged. There were sleepless nights, when I thought, “you know, I just don’t think I can do this… it’s just too hard.” Suddenly I wasn’t an expert at anything. Suddenly, I was always having to ask for help, and read like crazy, just to try and understand the basics. It was pretty humbling to become the rookie of the group.
It’s been a year now. The product is done. I feel really good about it, and I’ve learned so much. Not just about coding practices or patterns, but about myself as well.
Anyway. Go buy one.