Looking Back On 2021 - A Year In Review

A life they say is full of sweet and bitter moments and I'm grateful my sweet moments outweigh the bitter ones even though the pandemic made things a lot more difficult.

I started this year thinking of transitioning from web development into cloud engineering and although it has not been a bed of roses, I'm really glad I took the leap. Thanks to my friends and the communities I joined that make the journey worthwhile. Y'all are the best!

The Good

• Got selected to participate in SheCodeAfrica (SCA) Cloud School.
  

• Got serious with writing technical articles. My articles have gotten more than 20,000 views on Dev. Thanks to all my readers!
  

• Awarded the top 7 author of the week on Dev.

• Awarded the top Node author of the week on Dev.

• Got a full-time role as a Software Engineer.

• Got three technical writing gigs from international companies. Oh my my!

• Volunteered and got selected for SCA cloud school Person of Contact.

• Interviewed with a few FAANG(MANGA, now :)) companies. I'm going to write about this another time.

• Volunteered and got selected for SCA summer Code Camp Person of Contact (POC).

• Got enrolled into the Udacity Cloud DevOps Nanodegree through an IA scholarship.
  

• Received good reviews on my articles (one of the best wins).
  

• Aced two out of three DevOps interviews. Got an offer from one of them.
• Left a toxic workplace.
• Completed my National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
• Improved my mental health.
• Passed the AWS Cloud Practitioner exam.
• Got a lot of swags from different companies (the sweetest).

• Got selected as a Runner-up for the 2021 GitHub actions hackathon on Dev.
  

• Successfully transitioned from web development to cloud engineering.

• Made new and amazing friends.

The Bad

• Burnout. I was doing a lot of things together, a full time role with two writing gigs and a Udacity course were just too much for me to handle. I had to drop the writing gigs at some point.

• Got a rejection from one of the two DevOps interviews I thought I aced.
  

• Turned down the opportunity to speak at two events due to imposter syndrome and lack of preparation time. I hope to do more public speaking next year.

• My social life was a mess and I hope to fix it next year.

In summary, Im happy for my growth, even with the obstacles and challenges. I hope things get much better next year.

Thank you for reading and wishing you all the very best in 2022!