A developer's diary on stepping outside his comfort zone - Dev Retro 2022

Hey everyone👋. Welcome to my blog!

2022 has been a roller coaster ride and I am a developer who decided to step outside of my comfort zone and explore the world beyond it.

Over the past year, I have been taking steps to learn new skills, contributing to open source, and developing my understanding of programming. In this blog, I will be sharing my journey of self-discovery and the ways in which I have stepped outside my comfort zone to become a better developer.

🛠️Building in public

One way I have been exploring the world of development is by building in public.

Building in public is the practice of creating projects or products publicly with the goal of learning and gaining feedback from others in the process.

It is an extremely powerful tool for developers as it allows them to gain feedback from experienced developers, as well as become part of a larger community of people who are passionate about development.

I have been working on a few projects in public. One project I am particularly proud of is Focusly. It's a web app to help you stay focused during your deep work sessions.

It has been a great experience learning how to build something from scratch and also gaining valuable feedback from other developers.

🌐Open Source

2022 was a great year for open source. A lot of people started contributing to open source and it feels great to connect with them.

This year I came across various projects that became my daily drivers for development.

I was fascinated by the projects I encountered this year and felt compelled to get involved in some way.

This led me to start creating and solving issues and submitting pull requests to repositories of Eclipse Foundation, Chakra UI and Gitpod.

One thing which was completely new to me was doing code reviews.

Earlier I had a mindset that you need to be a lot more experienced to do code reviews but all this changed when I became the maintainer of my own project Focusly.

The code reviews and the discussions there teach you a ton. You get to learn how others are thinking and their approach to a problem. I connected with great folks through open source. You can also connect with me on GitHub.

✏️Technical Writing Journey

In addition to coding, I have also been investing time in technical writing.

After writing a few articles I realized that writing is an invaluable skill for developers as it helps them communicate their ideas more effectively and also creates an opportunity for them to learn more about their subject matter.

I kickstarted my technical writing journey by spreading knowledge about open source and how beginners can contribute to it. It was just a matter of taking the first step.

The blogs I wrote got some great feedback and I have learned a lot about development as well as improved my communication skills.

Technical writing has also enabled me to become more confident in my abilities as a developer and has opened up new opportunities for further development.

👨‍💻Leetcode

Finally, I have been focusing on Leetcode for improving my DSA skills. Leetcode is an online platform that provides developers with coding challenges to help them hone their coding skills and prepare for coding interviews.

It has been an invaluable tool for me as it has allowed me to gain practical knowledge on various topics such as data structures, algorithms, and problem-solving techniques.

Here in India, the Internship and placement season starts in August therefore I used Leetcode regularly and it helped me become more confident in my coding abilities when it came to Data Structures and Algorithms.

The challenges I faced while solving Leetcode problems pushed me out of my comfort zone and enabled me to become more capable as a problem solver.

🎙️Getting on the Stage

This year in February I saw a tweet where organizers of GDG (Google Developer Groups) Berlin were looking for speakers.

I thought "this seems interesting so why not give this a try". Hence I submitted my proposal for the event. Unfortunately, it got rejected.

After a month I got reached out by the organizer again for another event that was going to take place in March.

This time I learned from the mistakes I made with the last proposal and submitted a well-reviewed fresh proposal and it got selected. This is how I got the opportunity to speak on "How to start your Open Source Journey" at GDG Berlin's event.

After this experience, speaking became an integral part of my life as a developer something which had been outside of my comfort zone before then.

I also took various workshops both online and offline where the major topic of discussion was "Open Source".

Taking up public speaking opportunities helped me build confidence and showcase my knowledge. It was all made possible because of great folks willing to learn and help each other.

Conclusion

Over the past year, I have explored various areas of development by stepping outside my comfort zone.

From building projects publicly to participating in open-source projects and internships, all these experiences have enabled me to gain valuable knowledge and experience, improve my communication skills, and become a better developer overall.

I plan to use all the knowledge gained from these experiences to continue exploring the world of development and take further steps toward becoming an expert developer.

Thank you for joining me on this journey!

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