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Lines and Symmetry

For those who know me well, they would tell you that fitness and bodybuilding are aspects of life that I naturally enjoy. I love walking into the gym and inhaling the smell of iron and hard work in the air. It is motivating to me to see different folks from all walks of life come to one place to get better, to better and to do it from wherever they currently are. I grew up watching bodybuilding shows of Dorian Yates, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kai Greene. I loved the dedication that they put into their craft. Every fiber mattered! Every angle mattered. All muscles have to be shown in the best light and therefore given attention and detail.

I bring this thought process to my career as a software engineer. In the gym, I would have to target every body part once at least weekly to experience continual growth; legs, calves, arms, chest, shoulders, back and abs. I believe the same thing can be said of software engineering.

What does your software engineering alter-ego look like? Do you need to spend more time on concepts around system design? Maybe you need to focus on consistently engineering more optimal algorithms; for example: using recursion rather than using a double loop. How about learning your company’s codebase intimately? You can learn more about continuous integration (CI)or jump into understanding test driven development (TDD) better. Also, it is important to stay-up to date on the latest features of the technologies your team or company chooses to use in their tech stack.

“An indicator of a true professional is the level of dedication to maturation in their specific field or craft outside of the confines of it being mandatory”

- Brandon Baah

I’m working on putting together a workout plan so to speak for my software engineering skills. We all have areas to grow and improve in. I’m looking to put together a plan of sorts to achieve that individually. I’ll be open to sharing it after working out some of the bugs.

Published October 18, 2020