Reflecting on my best dev year yet. (Dev Retro 2022)

The Intro.

2022 was an awesome year for me - I truly won't be wrong to call it my best dev year ever. I welcome you to this interesting read where I'll take you through how awesome 2022 was for me.

In this article, I will take you through the very interesting time I had in an awesome year in which I became a blockchain developer, got my highest-paid freelance gig, got listed among champions on Hashnode, and won sensationally in the polygon Africa (blockchain/web3) Bootcamp of 2022 – among other sweet achievements.

2022 – How it started.

2022 began with my dev career being at a very humble level. My developer year kicked off with an amazing healthcare project. I worked on the project as the front-end web development lead. Even though the pay was very meagre, I kept at it.

Despite the fact that I never completed the project, It definitely contributed its bit towards making my 2022 dev year an awesome one.

Fast forward a while, I created a developer community called “Javascript Land” – a community that struggled a lot but still exists with a main base on Whatsapp and over 90 Members. Our Slack workspace also still exists.

By God's grace, Javascript Land will make amazing strides in 2023.

At another point in 2022, I was mentoring front-end web development in a tech Bootcamp.

In a summary, my 2022 began with me striving to make a mark, as I continued on my quest to prove a point – that I was an awesome developer, who could make it big like everyone else who has ever done so.

Entering the Hacklab Foundation Hackathon 2022.

The Hacklab foundation hackathon was one of the high points of my dev year in 2022. It was an event that featured amazing developers from all over Nigeria competing both onsite, and virtually from any location.

Teams were formed, and we all competed towards building amazing solutions in line with the theme: Accelerating Artificial Intelligence & Big Data through Edge Computing.

Even though my team never performed exceptionally at the hackathon, I still consider this event to be a strong part of my tech formation in 2022.

The loss just like so many other losses we experience in life, was a “blessing in disguise” – my team(team Zoe) was 14^th on the Leader board. We never even made it to the final stage.

It was a very hard loss for me - I worked hard and gave so much. I was the front-end web developer. I was also lead of my team.

Landing my highest-paid freelance gig.

One thing that I admit to have failed to do well in my developer journey so far, is maximizing the potentials of freelancing.

Freelancing has changed so many lives all around the world, but somehow, I engineered delays in my earning journey as a developer a lot because I failed to optimize my freelancer profile and show myself out well enough to the global tech market available for growing techies.

I’ve paid dearly as a result of this failure, I’ve lived long enough earning far below what my potentials, skills and gifts could earn me.

Even though I’ve paid dearly for that mistake Like I earlier stated, I believe I’ve benefited somehow as a result of having the extra time to keep skilling up and becoming more awesome at code.

Somehow, in June 2022, I received an email from a prospective client who found a NextJs freelancer posting that I made on dev.to.

After His email, we got talking and fast-forward a little, I got the gig – my highest-paid freelance gig so far.

This moment of hitting my highest-paying gig(it was truly high paying considering my status back then) meant a lot to me. It was a very high point in my dev career. It enabled me to prove a point that I have long sounded to friends and family about how big I was going to make it as a techie.

This moment meant a lot to me because – it enabled me to prove my point.

Despite how big this was back then, this achievement was only a scratch on the surface of the massive wins that were just along the way ahead.

Working on the project with the client, was a great experience. The project was a team project, which he decided to outsource his part of the teamwork to me.

The fact that he was a programmer and very easygoing (as much as I experienced), made working with him to be an awesome experience. He exposed me to some awesome tools to give me more speed and efficiency. One of those amazing tools that I can readily recall is tailblocks.cc. Working on that project, exposed me to a lot

After a while on the project, things weren’t going very well. I personally attributed that to some reasons – one of which was the fact that the project had no UI designs for me to work with.

It took that project to make me learn never to accept a client project that didn’t have a UI design provided for me to work with.

Fast forward a while, we couldn't continue on the project any longer.

Skilling up – becoming more awesome.

I was very unhappy and dissatisfied with the way things ended on that project, so I made a very important decision – to pause freelancing and intentionally skill up to become a better developer.

This decision was one of the best decisions I made in 2022.

I believe many developers do not realize how stagnant they are skill-wise, as a result of continuing to freelance or work for some time with only a certain skill set. The same is the case, for developers that work full-time or part-time in roles where they do not have room for learning new tech and growing or becoming better.

Its only a very wise choice as a developer, to keep up with tech trends and keep learning relevant new technologies. It’s also very important to pause freelancing for some time to advance in skills.

It’s definitely not a bad idea as well, to quit a job that leaves you with no time for growth as a developer.

A very practical demonstration of this fact, is how unwise it is for any developer to be ignoring web3 or failing to catch up with web3/blockchain trends in 2023.

Winning in Hashnode’s #4articles4weeks writeathon.

2022 was the year in which I made my “voice” to be heard on one of the world’s highest technical writing stages. I came tops in 2 of the 3 winning categories in the Hashnode #4articles4weeks writeathon challenge.

I was among the top 5 winners of the contest – winning 1k USD.

I was also among the top 10 noteworthy authors on hashnode - another winning category.

This win stands out as one of the biggest that I had in 2022.

The win meant a lot to me. Winning on a global stage like Hashnode alongside popular folks on Hashnode like Victoria Lo actually does feel good.

'Some times, we tend to feel inadquate, but if only we dare to believe and try, we’ll end up discovering that “we are no less, but equally made for the skies”'- A.J Okpainmo.

I remember the day I decided to join the contest after seeing the Hashnode Townhall post by Eleftheria Batsou. It's all a story now, but I am just so glad that I made the decision to enter the contest.

Exploring the world of paid technical writing 🤯🤯🤯 - 😲😲😲.

One of the after-rewards of taking on the #4article4weeks challenge on Hashnode, was the fact that it gave me a chance to improve my blogging/technical writing portfolio.

Having a good blogging/technical writing portfolio stands out as one of the most critical requirements for landing technical writing gigs.

2022 was the year I got my first paid technical writing gig - The deal agreement was $250 per article.

What astonished me most about paid technical writing, is how much is paid for writing a single technical article. A single technical article can go for as much as 350 US Dollars.

It’s just insane how much extra income developers can earn in a single month through paid technical writing. I might even make more in a month through technical writing than I would through working as a programmer - if I gave it the time.

But I actually prefer a code/developer role more.

After all, the secret behing writing awesome articles as a developer, lies greatly on how well you can use the skill/technologies on your dev stack, because you'll largely be writing about those technologies - even with practical code examples sometimes.

I never imagined so much income could be made just by writing technical content.

This brings me to another aspect of my developer journey that I regret a lot – I deeply regret my delay in getting serious with technical writing and blogging.

I could have made so much gains by combining my dev skills with technical writing if only I had gotten serious with it earlier than I did.

I deeply regret this, especially considering the fact that writing and fluency in English, are both kind of natural gifts I command.

It wasn’t too late to start though, I am already on it 😊😊😊.

My best dev decision of 2023 – becoming a blockchain developer at the Polygon web3/blockchain Bootcamp of 2022.

The Polygon Africa BootCamp of 2022 made me a web3/blockchain developer.

"Our decisions are responsible for shaping our destinies".

The decision to become a blockchain developer was definitely the best dev decision I made in 2023. In fact, I consider it to be one of the best (if not the best) decisions I’ve ever made in my developer career.

I could have made that decision at another time in my career, but I wonder if I would have forgiven myself If I had delayed becoming a blockchain developer later than 2022.

One reason why becoming a blockchain developer in 2022 meant a lot to me, was the fact that blockchain development is still at its very ripe early stages. A stage at which learning and becoming good at it would open me to so many opportunities and very high salary compensations.

Blockchain and web3 are at very crucial stages with a good demand for developers, technical writers and other related roles.

I am very glad that I made the decision to become a blockchain developer in 2022.

I had to ditch other opportunities to take on the polygon Bootcamp. I had to let go of the Zuri scholarship programme in which I wanted to learn NodeJs, and I also had to forfeit the HNG internship season 9 (HNG I9) programme as well.

I am now very grateful that I made those decisions.

Winning in the polygon Africa Bootcamp hackathon.

The polygon web3/blockchain Bootcamp of 2022 made my dream to become a blockchain developer a reality.

Beyond just the primary gains of the Bootcamp, I got the opportunity to shine bright at the 2 weeks hackathon of the Bootcamp that was held after the 6 weeks learning phase. My project “deeco” – a blockchain solution for e- commerce was among the top 13 projects in the junior category(the beginner's track) – winning me a handsome cash price.

Building “deeco” was a very challenging process. But it all paid off – after everything.

"deeco" was fourth on the list of winners in my category(the junior/beginners). Narrowly missing the third place I guess.

Even though we were allowed to form teams, I choose to build it "solo"(alone as a 1-man team), yet I still aced this much. I actually aimed to take first place. I remember feeling so broken over the fact that I came fourth place. It was so hard. I acted as though coming fourth didn't win me something nice still.

Fast forward, I am beginning to really see the benefits of making the decision to become a blockchain developer in 2022. The opportunities that abound, are just so much both as a developer, and as a technical writer.

I am just so grateful that I made the decision to become a blockchain developer in 2022.

Built two UNICORNS–to-be 😊😊😊.

2022 was just an amazing dev year for me. I am just so grateful for how much progress I made in it.

In 2022, I built some amazing projects – two of which are “tilo” and
“deeco”. These projects are both amazing and I have strong hopes in the fact that they’ll both grow into unicorn start-ups hopefully sometime soon.

“deeco” already started winning me accolades through the polygon Bootcamp hackathon even though it is only still simple and not stuffed with all the amazing features that I could have added to it.

For now, I am keeping “deeco” off public view, but you can explore a bit about the project in this Twitter thread that I made about it.

Tilo(a crypto-based app) on the other hand, is still at a very simple stage – I left the project for a while now. But with my progress in web3/blockchain development, and backend web development(NodeJs), I hope to work hard on it and add in as many features as possible – especially blockchain/web3 features.

I made an article about “tilo” sometime in 2022. The article was part of the 4 articles that won me the Hashnode #4article4weeks writeathon contest.

Follow this link to read the article.

I’ve long been a start-up enthusiast, I’ve wanted to become a tech founder right from my teen age – even when I was still yet to start out fully on my tech journey. It’s always been my obsession.

Let’s see how much of the unicorn dream I’ll be able to achieve for both “tilo” and “deeco” in 2023.

Learning backend development(NodeJs).

Just before 2022 ended, as part of my holiday goals, I started learning NodeJs for backend web development.

I have longed wanted to become a full-stack web developer. Being a front-end-only developer has just not been my desire. I’ve always craved the “full” power that full-stack web development affords developers.

I however made the decision to spend quality time in becoming as good as possible with front-end web development before advancing into back-end development hence becoming a full-stack developer.

The Journey wasn’t all Smooth(recounting some hard and painful moments).

2022 was no doubt an awesome dev year for me, but the story wasn’t all smooth rosy, and sweet.

it had some painful and bitter moments for me as well - especially in the first 6 months.

I recall how I lost out in a Junior React developer interview – I wrote an article on that as part of the hashnode #4article4weeks writeathon challenge as well.

You can follow this link to read the article.

I can also recall some failed attempts like a job interview that I was never called for after building a project as part of the recruitment process. I recall how hard I tried to win a developer advocate role for Contenful but ended up failing.

I remember how my team lost woefully at the Hacklab foundation hackathon of 2022.

I started 2022 with a much-limited dev tool kit – especially a laptop that my dev duties greatly outgrew later in the year(can't recall now if I even outgrew It before the year began).

I started 2022 with not so much knowledge about how I could find my way towards earning as much as I would have loved to.

I believe I can go on and on listing the losses and painful moments of 2022. But I’ll just stop here.

No doubt 2022 was a year filled with challenging and painful experiences as well. But I strongly agree that all of these challenges contributed in one way or the other towards making the overall year a success.

Fired up to explode in 2023.

2022 was no doubt an awesome year for me.

In 2022, I learnt a lot, and gained a lot of experience.

In 2022, I became really good at what I call “the art of software engineering”.

In 2022, I won on some big stages - globally on Hashnode, and Africa-wide at the Polygon Africa Bootcamp of 2022.

In 2022, I became a better-skilled developer – way more awesome.

In 2022, I got exposed to how I could really earn so much, and hence I got a better picture of my worth as a developer.

In 2022, I achieved just soooooo much.

I started 2022 with a 4GB RAM Intel Celeron HP 15 laptop, which I named “Iyanu”. I Ended 2022 with a 16GB RAM, Intel Core i7 Lenovo “Machine” – heavily stuffed (screen-touch, 360 degrees turn(laptop and tablet mode), SSD, and with Envidia graphics capacity) – I named it “Kareem”.

😊😊😊 – forgive my “crazy” habits of naming gadgets.

I am deeply grateful to God for all the wins - 2022 really got me prepared to explode in 2023.

My current salary goal(per month) is A MINIMUM of 10K US Dollars. I won’t even begin an interview process if the offering is less – every developer’s dream I guess.

2022 made us bigger

Lessons Learnt from 2022, and the decisions I’ve made.

From this long post you’ve read so far. One thing is obvious, and that thing is the fact that I must have “learned a lot and gained so much experience” in 2022. That fact is very true.

Lessons Learnt

2022 showed me the benefits and rewards of hard work.

In 2022, I learnt the benefits of following relevant new trends like web3.

In 2022, I learnt good lessons from aspects of my dev career that I had long failed to take advantage of – aspects like Technical writing/blogging, and exploring the world of freelancing more better.

I learnt a lot.

Decisions made

In 2023, I hope to give more attention to my health. To support that goal, I hope to make a huge workspace upgrade before the first quarter of the year ends.

I also hope to take up a full-time role, so I can gain some “in-house” industry experience, get to know more industry best practices, and contribute to the success of a larger team and the firm at large.

In 2023, I'll love to connect more and grow my network, socialize and have a lot more fun, and strive to be a happier person.

Conclusion.

2022 was indeed an awesome year for me. It certainly made me bigger and better. I hope to build on all the experiences I gained from it, and work harder and better towards achieving a far better 2023.

Thank you so much for reading this far. I hope my 2022 dev story inspired you enough. I wish you a 2023 that’s way better than any other year you’ve ever experienced.

I initially compiled this article to participate in the Hashnode #DevRetro2022 challenge. But I couldn't post it on time because of some hitches.

I just hope you enjoyed reading it.

Let’s fly higher in 2023.

Cheers!!! 👋.