State of Mind Right Before 2025
The last two years have been quite an adventure for me. Beware, dear reader, as I reflect on my past two years in both mental and technical aspects and also share my plans for the future.
The Mental Aspect
In February 2023, a massive earthquake hit the eastern part of Turkey. It was a very tragic event. I haven't lost any relatives or friends, but many people did.
Witnessing the widespread loss and suffering overwhelmed me. Knowing that many of these losses could have been prevented, I was feeling frustrated. Which got amplified by the news and social media.
I think I experienced what is called secondary trauma, and took a serious toll on my mental well-being. The elections were very close - May 2023, the political climate was very hot, and the work had become very demanding. To relieve, and to distance myself from all these, I took a week off, which didn't help at all.
I had no room to process all that had been happening and got burned out in the end. I started to look for an exit, any kind of exit.
Around that time, a minor issue in the workplace was the final straw for me. I quit my job. Without any job offer, or any plan for what to do next. In hindsight, this was a hasty move and a bit immature of me. However it happened, this marks the beginning of my growth journey.
First, I've looked for jobs abroad. As it is one of the most radical changes a person can have in life, I can leave the country and leave all my tiredness and unhappiness behind me. Let alone getting an offer, I didn't get an interview for two months.
After two months, I was very short on money and needed a job immediately. Despite hearing negative rumors about the "private fintech company", I accepted their offer thinking 'What can go wrong?'. Needless to say, there wasn't too much public information about this private company.
After a long time in the same company, working in another one felt refreshing at first. But I wasn't a cultural fit for the company. This time even though I was excited to work in another company, we just couldn't get along. I don't want to take the blame on this one, because the company had a toxic environment where my colleagues told lies behind me, and didn't even accept me socially, even though I tried...
In February 2024, I got fired out of the blue. Right after that, a colleague called me to say goodbye, he was fired, too. Since I wasn't nearly expecting to get fired, I immediately called my manager and asked if there was a layoff and he didn't tell me. He said, "No, it is just you and one other person. You know due to performance reasons" - which I didn't have and I got pretty good feedback very recently. A couple of weeks later, I saw the news that they laid off a third of the people in the company ( about 100 people ). He just didn't have the heart to tell me...
I immediately started to look for jobs and also called my previous employee Fatih Üstündağ. Though I was quick to quit, we separated in good hearts, and I thought they would accept me back - which they did. For this, I am very grateful.
Here are the key lessons I've learned from this whole journey:
- Focus on what you can control,
- Approach work and life decisions carefully with clear planning,
- Culture fit is very important in the workplace,
Focus on yourself, focus on your goals, get your sleep, eat a healthy diet, and take long walks during the day. Things get a lot easier this way.
Now, I am at peace and determined more than ever!
The Technical Aspect
I've learned a lot during my first year in Getcontact. Then my learning pace slowed, and after a while, I started feeling stuck. I was very comfortable in building Node.js applications. I've learned about databases, performance tricks, etc. The job didn't require much more than that.
I didn't know what I didn't know. In an attempt to broaden my perspective, I started learning other languages, starting with Rust.
Rust: A Promising Start but Not My Type
Rust was all the hype, and I gave it a try. I read the Rust book and created some small programs. I enjoyed the type system, iterators and borrow checker. But I got lost in macros. To me, a program's code should be as explicit as possible.
Macro expansions, unusual async workflow along the initially enjoyable type system getting too complex too fast, I decided to move on from Rust. The ideas behind the language were very novel but it didn't grow in me.
Go: Breath of Fresh Air
In the past, I had a little experience with Go, and I decided to give it another try. I started with A Tour of Go. It is a very lovable language, the simplicity, the ease of use, the package management system... Oh, I feel at home when I write Go. Did I mention the simplicity? It felt like fresh air after JavaScript/Node.js. Luckily, I've had the chance to work with Go in the "private fintech company", and when I came back to Getcontact, I took on the challenge of creating a green field Go project - yay! I am very happy that I am working with Go, and I will probably stick to the language for a long time.
Boot.dev
In one of Primeagen's streams, he endorsed Boot.dev, an online interactive learning experience for backend engineers. There are a lot of bootcamps and online courses for software engineers, but very few are explicitly designed for backend developers. I enrolled in the program and ate the courses in a big bite. It allowed me to sharpen my data structures and algorithm knowledge, along with Go, Python, and JavaScript, as well as a little bit of C. I recommend this course to software engineers of all experience levels.
Master's
I was getting more and more hungry for software engineering knowledge. So, I enrolled for a master's in Software Engineering at Bogazici University - which I also graduated from in 2019. I had a great experience during those years. However, now that I am 28, my perspective changed. I attended the master's for one semester but some things were not as I expected.
Though there are great professors at Bogazici University, the professors are so busy with other things and the master's program is not their priority. So, I decided to take my master's at a different university. I haven't decided yet, but this time I am especially considering private universities instead of state universities.
A Small Visit to Systems Programming: Zig, Tigerbeetle and OSTEP
In another one of Primeagen's streams, I've met with the database that will solve a lot of our problems at Getcontact, Tigerbeetle.
After reading its documentation, watching Joran Dirk Greef's talks, and going through the papers they used when building the Tigerbeetle, I was mesmerized. Since I've also quit my master's, I started to learn more about Zig - the language Tigerbeetle is written in. Also, I started to watch out for Andrew Kelley the inventor of Zig creator of the groovebasin. ( the joke from here ), he is a great software engineer and worth following.
A shout-out to the founder of the Tigerbeetle, Joran Dirk Greef. After realizing the miracles behind the Tigerbeetle, I emailed him about how can I become a better software developer, and he very kindly replied with the greatest resource I've ever read, Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces, written by Remzi H. Arpaci Dusseau and Andrea C. Arpaci Dusseau. You can search the web for amazing comments about the book, which I won't elaborate on here. Also, I've shared what I've learned from OSTEP in a quick and dirty blog post here: OSTEP Learnings [ Personal ], if you want to check it out.
The Current Aspect
- I am more busy than when I got burned out
- I am learning a lot more than the last years
- Turkey's economy is in very bad shape
- Politics are still very polarizing
After changing my perspective on life and gaining mechanisms to cope with stress, things got much easier. I am feeling very calm now, despite working harder and living conditions in Turkey are worse compared to previous years. My journey in the last two years clicked something in my head.
Aside from internal transformation, one smallest change led to the biggest impact in my life. Taking long walks during the day.
Another thing I realized is, it is good to have people you look up to. Primeagen was one of the first people that helped me change my perspective. I know he does some silly things on the stream to enjoy people, but he also shares great life lessons. Well ackshually, his transformation story after the college years helped me gain confidence in what I can achieve.
Another person who has been very influential on my change is my current manager Eser Özvataf, but he doesn't even know that. He never gave me life advice or career advice directly - besides as replies to my questions. His calm and systematic approach to challenges shaped how I navigate around challenges, too. This has been said a lot of times before, but actions influence other people much more than words. As the saying goes, monkey sees monkey does.
The Future Aspect
I've learned that progress is not linear, and setbacks are often disguised opportunities for self-discovery.
For the future, I am committed to:
- Setting measured goals,
- Pursuing meaningful certifications,
- Continuing my personal exploration.
Aside from the certifications, I am also looking forward to enrolling in a master's again. Last year, I promised myself to learn how to skate. This year I will be faithful to myself.
The coming year holds countless possibilities, and I'm eager to face them with the lessons I've learned, the mentors I admire, and a renewed sense of purpose.
This is the state of mind right before 2025, I wish you all the best for the next year! 🎉