Yes, I am alive!! It has been a long while since I've updated anything here, and it's because I've been busy.
A little over two years ago I started working for a company called Myntex, who's primary product was a private communication system called ChatMail. I got the chance to update and upgrade both of these websites as the primary developer while working with Myntex. CM is a phone messaging system that is secured by layers of encryption; and I call it a phone messaging system because it really is an entire system that has been hardened against illegitimate intrusion of any kind. Myntex owned the data centers that handled messages worldwide, which all came through as encrypted payloads so even we couldn't access data pertaining to specific messages.
While updating these websites I was also authoring several microservices for our new microservice architecture. This was all back-end server development in ways that would utilize our new microservice messaging system. This was the most exciting and current-generation web technology I've ever had the opportunity to work with, and was very exciting. Now all of these microservice deployments were building towards the release of our newest private encrypted communication solution.
During my time with Myntex, ChatMail got an upgrade that included encrypted voice calls (and not just WalkieTalkie-style voice messages, I mean actual two-way voice calls), which I had built a time tracking system for. After this, the company was working to get rid of a private domain on Google Play Services and distribute their software internally. As a security and privacy-focused company we subscribed to the "zero-trust" policy in more ways than one, and as such could not trust Google Play Services (enterprise-level or otherwise) to invest in privacy as much as we were prepared to. Out of this need to cut Google out of the picture (software-wise), Renati was born (renatimobile.com).
Renati needed to be beta-tested, and in that beta testing we wanted a promotional website and feedback form rolled into one, which is what beta.renatimobile.com became. This was using exciting new front-end technologies on top of the JavaScript Vue framework, all of which I had the chance to research and build from the ground up. This was a keystone to my work with Myntex, and really nicely demonstrated my capability as a web developer. Unfortunately the site lies behind a beta-key password, and I can't just give out the password that I have to everybody. The CEO, Geoff Green, was kind enough to provide me with an example key to get onto the site to show off at interviews, so it's not completely out of reach for me to demonstrate my past work.
--------
Then COVID worsened, then economic uncertainty, then my anxiety about affording mortgage renewal when it would become time to do so...
--------
From here my story is filled with regret. I was contacted by a recruiter who asked me how things were going in my current position, and I responded "Good. Some of the work is more exciting and interesting than other parts, but that's to be expected". He took that as a chance to advertise a role he was hiring for, estimating that I would be payed roughly $20k more than I was getting currently. My anxiety about costs on everything skyrocketing pushed me to say "I'm interested", and this was my first mistake.
After a few interviews, I had a job offer that looked like it would pay that significant amount more that I was looking for. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I regret saying 'yes' to that offer. The state of the codebase was really rough, but in all honesty that was advertised to me in the final round of interview. Old versions of everything was being used, and there was no discernible structure to the code. I shrugged this off, as it only meant that there was a lot of work to do and because I hate being idle (especially at work) it was really a good thing. Comments about the poor state of the code or suggestions for improvement were denied, shrugged off, or flatly ignored. I was told to stop talking about it, as some of the developers who wrote the code initially might not appreciate my commentary. My passion for clean code and desire for a coding standard was not appreciated, and it sounded like the "lots of work" to be done didn't involve the existing code.
I looked into the git log and this code had not been originally authored by anyone who was currently with the company. This was odd, so I looked into this further and found that this company had a history of development employees leaving in quick succession. I thought that this was just because these past devs weren't up to the task of refactoring or otherwise correcting the spaghetti that was in our application. I took it upon myself to start prettifying this code. This was my second mistake.
When given a task (agile board stories were assigned) without being prompted I started to clean up the format of the code in the files I was working on. I changed code where it was relevant to do so as part of the work story, but I also cleaned up the files that the specific task was part of. It's important for me to note that I wasn't actually changing any of this code outside of my task, I was just fixing indentations and running prettier to lint the files. Some of these files were in excess of 3000 lines long and had ONE function in them. I also removed import statements that weren't being used anywhere, and after I was done, I felt, it was much easier for a person to parse through that file, so if the company ever wanted to actually refactor and fix pieces of the software that were not operating 100% of the time, they could do so with more confidence.
This was not the case.
I learned that we never planned to refactor anything, but instead we would rewrite it for another market and port it back to the current market. After this I was told that management had a problem with me "making changes beyond what was being asked for" in my pull requests, and then was given fair severance pay and waved goodbye.
================
And after all of this I've learned some valuable lessons, the foremost being 'if you're happy where you are, stay there'. Also 'If you see a problem and know how to fix it then make sure to explain fully why it should be fixed and what steps you can take toward that fix. Then if and only if you get permission to implement those steps that you've planned should you start to work towards a fix.'
I'm still young in my career and so I'm glad to have learned these lessons, even if they had to be learned in this hard way. I'm as anxious as ever about economic uncertainty, and I'm back to marketing myself around the skills that I've learned over these past 6 years as a software developer.
So I'll start by saying that I know I've been gone from this site for too long. Honestly, its come to the point where I don't even include a link to here in my resume. I need to get back on the bus with this stuff...
The update! So it's mid COVID-19 troubles and needless to say I am having a rough time of it. I had a wonderful job with a company that I cared about and I did work that was interesting and challenging and I had a chance there to learn and grow while I worked. That was at Zephyr Technologies, a company spun out of a need to improve sleep apnea remedies that was being driven by John E. Remmers. I had fun there, I liked my team there, and I feel like I made a difference there. But nothing lasts forever, especially not the good things, and the company had to downsize in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. There are no hard feeling about letting me go; I wish they didn't have to but they did, so that was a thing.
I've started work with Bode Canada (I'm not even gonna bother with their funny accented 'o'). It's interesting work, I'm learning a new JavaScript toolset, and there is lots of work to do. I'm not sure that I like Vue.js better than React.js, but that might just be because of how the project I'm working on blatantly disregards recommended coding style and in a lot of cases I've seen already the Vue.js style guide. I'm working remote in this job. I hate working remote in this job. I'm a social programmer; I like to hear the team when problems arise, I like to share an office space, I like being able to chat with coworkers over lunch. Remote work offers none of this, and my home is now my office as well (I need bigger apartment :-P)
That's really all I've got going for me at the moment. Times are tough. Gotta stay healthy. Gotta stay sane. Gotta socially distance (I know it's less of a problem in my city than it is elsewhere, but I'm expecting a resurgence).
So the project work has been slow going ever since I started back with it after the fire. I've built a new PC and started planning a fairly large project, but it's hard to find the time to work on it between the constant job search and 'assignments' that potential employers put me to work at. I'm really excited to work on it when I do have time, though. For now I'm going to call it "Project L", and all I can say is that it will be more of a pillar than an actionable widget. I'll probably be using React.js in some capacity to build what I have in mind, but I'm not past the planning stages yet, so I'll give updates as it becomes appropriate to do so. I'm thinking that a lot of this will be working with different APIs as well, which I'm excited as ever to delve into.
I've started rebuilding my life after the fire, and will be resuming past projects and work on life goals ASAP. I'm happy to have settled back into a house, but there is still much to do; I am currently contracting (in a field not related to my intended career) and I'm finding it hard to make time to learn and grow in Web Software Development. Working at doing what I don't want to be a career is hard enough - while continuing during free time with what I want to make my career is all the more difficult.
I am still looking, and in between my contract job and the skills building exercises I do still apply where I can. If anyone actually reads these blog posts - I am looking for work as a software developer, so let me know if you know of hiring happening anywhere. I'm open to programming in any language, and am confident that I can learn new frameworks quickly.
I'm hopeful that things will start looking up for me in my life. I had thought that I had everything sorted and I was ready to build a life out of it, but it didn't turn out that way and I'm here again climbing from the ground up.
My life has been running out of control recently. A string of hard times followed by bad luck has moved me, temporarily, out of my apartment; there was a fire that has managed to irreparably burn all of the material possessions that meant the most to me. I've moved myself and what I could immediately salvage to a place where I don't feel at home. My updates to this site, my git profile, and all other projects will be suspended indefinitely while this gets sorted out.
This is as a terribly disheartening development to a relatively quick succession of what I can only describe as bad luck. I feel less and less in control of my own existence, and so it is with regret that I halt these updates and all related work for the time being.
That is all.
