Nevertheless, Carol Darski coded (2020 version)

When I participated in this initiative last year, I was feeling the need to share with the world that situations happen, and y'all are not alone.

This year

This year I would like to reflect I bit about 2019 and what makes me feel joy in slamming my head in the wall trying to find solutions for some challenges.

2019 was heavy, lots of things happened. I became a Lead Software Engineer. I wasn't sure if I would like it, and I was conflicted almost every single day in the first months.
I started doubting my competence in leading people and also as a Senior Software Engineer until I realized that I was the only person putting pressure on myself, creating impossible internal deadlines to achieve things, and the situation wasn't healthy at all.

The year brought a lot of learnings. I learned to give things time and to trust people more. Male colleagues had shown with actions to be amazing allies. I saw other colleagues battling the status quo asking more questions, raising their voices, asking why we were not considering other folks to some of the opportunities.

Our team grew and had more non-male engineers on the leadership positions, and I saw a bit of inclusion, at least in the gender field. I felt that I belonged there, and others shared the same feeling.

Another thing I learned, this time about myself, I am always going to be a pain in the ass about inclusion. I am going to fight, I am going to be frustrated, and I am going to talk about it because it is necessary. But this time I feel I am not alone and I feel heard.

I still feel the joy to help others grow and to see something work with a piece of code that could be small, but will impact someone's life. I am inspired by how our team is becoming more diverse and inclusive. I think the fact that I am in a good environment, having a HUGE support group inside my team, where I can be myself, fail and learn as a human makes me happy to still exercise my passion for coding.