On the Job

or Happy Three Months!

I have now worked at CEA for longer than I was in code school last fall. Today is exactly 3 months from my first day as a working software engineer. So here is my version of a State of the Job address to all houses of the blogosphere.

After twelve weeks in code school, five weeks looking for work (and constantly learning), and thirteen weeks on the job this is how I feel every day: elated. I couldn’t ask for a better team of people surrounding me at work. Every day is a fun adventure full of witty banter, inside jokes, and me “busting a beat” for my co-worker Mark. Our sister company TourConnect has awesome, awesome engineers. Our three interns are some young guns that have truly impressed me with their work ethic and ability to quickly pick up complicated concepts. You never know when a game of table tennis or a push-up circle is going to break out. Expect the unexpected. Especially when co-workers head to SxSW Interactive with a camera on their phones.

There is also the coding. As I become more comfortable with JavaScript and React specifically, I can feel my understanding of our application deepening. I tend to have imposter syndrome and feel like, “Who am I fooling? I don’t know enough JavaScript yet!” However, it is coming on faster and faster after digging through many components and upgrading older ES5 syntax to the new shiny ES2015 syntax. This process has sent me searching through the interwebs for answers many times. Constantly learning!

We also recently started a new meetup in town called ReactJS Dallas. I am the organizer for it, but it is really a concerted effort of Call-Em-All and TourConnect together. This topic came up in my interview back in December. I kept asking about it and eventually became the owner of the project. Our first meeting had almost 40 React Devs in attendance with several more on a waitlist. It is turning out to be a big hit! My favorite parts of the event were seeing Morry Kang talk about an “Introduction to React” and meeting people from all over Dallas that use React or want to learn about it. It was especially cool to meet two remote developers who are accustomed to sitting at home and working via the internet. We got those people out of the house and mingling with like-minded coders!

Making this switch from a long-time, successful band director to a software engineer has not been easy…but it has been worth it. Since starting my job at Call-Em-All, I have seen my family more than ever. I also have a career that is affording me the ability to constantly learn and stay surrounded by successful people. I am loving everything about it, and I am looking forward to many years of good times here!

Written by Mike Mathew who lives and works in Dallas building useful things. Sometimes he posts on Mastodon. Mike also wears many hats at Presto Assistant where he is a co-founder, owner, and product engineer.