Thank You, 2024: The Challenges and Achievements

I can't express how happy and proud I was when we is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization that helps early-career developers learn the collaboration side of software development. Unfortunately,

Catching a Pokemon

I've been part of the ) in person! My first-ever Pokemon caught!🥳

Victoria has been one of my biggest inspirations and motivation in tech, particularly blogging. At this point, I was on the edge of giving up tech, which I will tell you later. Meeting and talking with her over coffee gave me many reasons to stay and push through. I feel very fortunate to know and have her as a good friend! 🥰

I've been learning coding, blogging, and being involved in tech communities for almost six years. Although I enjoy what I do, I reach the point where I feel exhausted and don't know what else to do, which leads me to want to give up.

I don't have as much energy to learn late at night as I used to, and I can't absorb things as fast as I used to. I started to lose focus and do everything half-heartedly. The tech field is dynamic, and I lose my breath trying to catch up.

The tech job market has been more challenging these past years. Most companies are looking for senior-level and Dutch-speaking developers in the Netherlands, and I don't meet the requirements. I can understand and speak Dutch, but not at a working level, let alone in tech. And obviously, I'm an early career in tech. Receiving rejection letters is not new to me, but I won't lie. It often disappoints me and leaves me feeling defeated.

I did get a handful of interviews through some networks (for which I'm super grateful). However, I mostly fail in technical interviews because my skills "are not there" yet, which makes me believe that my skills will never be there. I would then beat myself up because I let those who referred me to the companies down.

For the last six months, I've been struggling. I know it's not an imposter syndrome anymore. It's more than that. I still love tech and wish to stay in this field, but being a front-end developer is no longer something I want to pursue. I'm too far from what it takes to be a junior developer and just too exhausted to get there. So, I paused and did some deep thinking. From there, I realized some things that motivated me to pivot in 2025.

Final Words

The year 2024 was tough, but I learned so much from it—most importantly, I learned so much more about myself. I'm also blessed and grateful to be part of great communities and have friends who continuously support and motivate me. I can't say thank you enough to all of you for believing in me! 🫶

I have one big goal for next year, which I will discuss in a separate post. Lastly, thank you for all the lessons, year 2024!

This is a submission for the on Unsplash