It is no secret that the past 18 months has been a challenge for everyone, worldwide. I started this blog to document some of my learning along my journey as a developer but during the last 18 months so much has changed.

Let’s rewind a little bit, around March 2019 I was taken out of my post a a developer to superivse a team I had worked in when I first joined the orginisation, this team was the support desk, the plan from the management was that I would continue developing application code 2 days a week and look after the support desk 3 days a week, but in reality that never panned out the support desk was a full time position so I was never really given the time to develop any code during the working day. This went on for the entire of 2019, as we moved slowly into 2020 there was a plan in place for me to move back into my role as a developer, but then COVID struck and it was all hands to the pumps, building devices, getting people setup to work from home this all became the norm of my day to day.

As we moved towards the end of the year things just didn’t seem to be changing, work was the same and I was still getting no time to continue my role as developer, something I had worked extremely hard over the course of 10 years to get a chance in I was starting to feel burnt out, lost and really down about the future of where I would be in 12 months time, the less I was writing code the more I was missing out on becuase as we all know, technology doesn’t want for anyone.

One evening in November 2020 I thought that where I was wasn’t what I wanted to do, I needed to make a change becuase ultimatley nobody else was going to do it for me, there was no chance of me moving back into the post as a developer so I started searching for new jobs, it was a daunting experiance becuase I hadn’t applied for a job in almost 12 years, after a little while looking I found something that fit exactly what I was looking for. A SQL Developer role within an Informatics department, the problem now was I had no CV, I set about putting one together and a few days later submitted my application.

Weeks passed, at least it felt like weeks, I heard nothing, I was addament that my application had not made it to the interview stage, but then one day I had an email, in that email was an invitiation to interview, I obviously accepted, the interview itself would be remote, over Microsoft Teams which everything is now I spent the week before preparing, reading over the job specification making sure I had all the bases covered. Interview day came and it was honestly one of the most anxiety inducing things ever, I answered every single question in the best way possible and was told it would be a few days until I had an answer…I waited…and waited…then the call came, and I was offered the position.

I have been working in this new team for almost 4 months now, 100% remote which has been the hardest thing but learning an entirely new job as been a challenge especially when you are coming from a position that you know inside and out, it isn’t so much the technical aspect of the role that is difficult, it is understanding what all the data means becuase that isn’t something you can learn and take with you from shop to shop.

So, that is where I have been, I hope to get back to writing here, not saying it is going to be frequent but hopefully it will be more frequent that what it has been.

Stay safe!