The lunar new year celebration just concluded yesterday. My family and I went to the temple to offer our hopes and prayers for a good and happy year ahead. Just out of curiosity, we also went to draw a fortune stick. The text accompanying our fortune stick resonated with a saying: “After winter comes spring”, which I find comforting, and hopefully it applies to everyone here.
Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash
Setting the Stage for Reflection
Yet, just right before the celebrations began, the reality gently nudged with some updates on some of my ongoing applications — updates that, unfortunately, were not favourable. However, this did offer me a chance to slow down and take some time to reflect since my retrenchment that happened early last year. The job market is getting increasingly competitive, with massive retrenchments happening so frequently these days.
While knowing each job applications and project discussions are all independent to each other, regrouping emotionally from each outcome takes increasingly longer each time. Thus, I took some time off, and I am sorry for skipping a post last week. So, for this week, I wanted to skip usual content and share about my journey since leaving the previous job involuntarily early last year.
The Journey Inward Begins
I was away on the new year day on Jan 1st last year, and was unreachable for the day. I was telling my friends about finally being able to focus on my physical and mental wellbeing, after going through the stress of moving into a new house. The retrenchment news, therefore, reached me only on January 2nd, the first working day of the new year.
The company wasn’t doing well, so I took the news calmly. I am still very grateful to this day by the amount of support coming from everyone around me upon hearing about my retrenchment. The next one would be better, everyone said, though I had little idea on what to do next.
I was given time until the end of February to prepare for the handover of tasks and projects. The development and maintenance work for projects that were just delegated to me months prior, were reassigned back to my manager. I also started to check the documentations of my previous projects to ensure they are up-to-date, and prepare my junior colleagues for the eventual takeover of existing tasks.
Working for a startup is inherently demanding, and months before the layoff, I was also heavily stressed over my house renovation and preparing to move into it. It was so bad that I was losing sleep and had become very temperamental. Just when I finally settled into my own house, the retrenchment hits. At the time, it really felt like a relief at first. A friend also approached with a short-term project so I could have some more time to figure out my next step.
Pivoting to a different career path was something I had been pondering, but now the urgency level suddenly increased. I started to pay attention to books, not only about mental and psychology development, but also on career development, hoping to find a silver bullet to the problem.
It was this very question, “what to do next?” — alongside my readings (the stack of books is still growing) — that sparked the idea for this blog. While I do have another blog to jot down learning notes, this blog is intended as a space where I explore ideas on how things should be done, communicate technical ideas to a broader audience, and more.
While reading through my books, I stumbled upon a book discussing Vipassana, and how the author benefited from it. Out of curiosity, I went on to search about it, and found that I could join a session in August, which was about 2 months away when I registered. I figured I should be able to conclude my part of work by then and submitted my registration.
I wasn’t expecting it to be a life-changing decision.
Vipassana is a school of meditation techniques that has roots in Buddhism. However, the course was conducted such that people of different religion background (or lack thereof) could join. Although Buddhist values are discussed, the focus was more on understanding oneself, interaction with others, as well as navigating the world.
One of the main takeaways from the course, was the concept of equanimity. We interact with other people every day, and each decision we make yields an outcome. The outcomes may be favourable or otherwise. However, we tend to develop a sense of cravings or aversions towards them. Equanimity is a principle where we should learn to be content, and all outcomes — favourable or unfavourable, with equal composure.
Ultimately, events arise and eventually pass. No joy lasts forever, and no misery is genuinely endless.
It felt almost as if some unseen force was determined to test my resolve, just as I was feeling ready to start anew. The resume was updated, job applications were sent, and I started meeting up with people looking for engineers to realize their novel groundbreaking ideas.
Meanwhile, to keep my mind sharp, I also worked on some projects that I didn’t have time in the past. Eventually, I also started to work on the Advent of Code, and share my solutions for some of the puzzles I find interesting.
Given how competitive the scene is, the constant coding habit helps to provide a sense of reassurance on my self-worth, while facing rejections. Often, the reasons are surprisingly trivial, such as a minor difference in refactoring style, or they reveal unrealistic expectations — demanding significant commitment for little or no compensation. Looking back, one might even view these rejections as blessings in disguise.
There is still much to learn, as I do find the time it takes to regroup emotionally increases over time, especially with increasing financial pressures. Despite investing significant time — days spent on take-home technical tests and project scope discussions — these efforts yielded no results, and time continued to pass without generating meaningful income.
But I want to remain hopeful.
Finding My Voice, Defining My Path
I started the blog, about the same time I started looking for my next thing to do. It was inspired by some of the books I read throughout the year, where they encourage content creation that is useful. Combining my skills as a software engineer with a newfound interest in explaining ideas to a wider audience, this blog began to take shape.
While software engineer is an interesting field of work, but the demanding nature is also rather taxing as I age. I experimented with a lot of things in the past, for example writing short stories (albeit in my native language Mandarin), producing podcasts, livestreaming, etc. However, they felt very scattered and disconnected to each other due to the experimental nature. Also, they lack focus and purpose.
Starting fresh, my intention is to establish a central platform where each exploration will contribute to a larger, unifying goal. My hope is that this focused approach will eventually help me define a clearer path forward, even as I intentionally remain open to diverse opportunities.
Finding Composure, Seeking Spring
So, as the fortune stick indicates, spring comes eventually. Moving forward, my journey has solidified a core value: I am committed to working on projects that bring changes to our day-to-day life in a more positive way. Tech should always bring convenience to our life, but we still see people getting excluded due to many reasons, mainly due to accessibility. I worked on projects improving it in the past few years, and I’m eager to further explore and articulate these ideas, as I’ve started to do on this blog, and I hope to continue the effort in the near future.
Remote work is also a main priority, as it aligns with my interest in exploring more sustainable and mindful approaches to work. The benefits to efficiency and wellbeing are undeniable. Due to poor town planning, a soul-draining 2–3 hour daily commute is common, and in past office experiences, constant distractions from cramped spaces and ad-hoc discussions were frequent. However, in my recent remote roles, I’ve greatly appreciated the focused work environment and, with conscious effort, found effective coworker communication is entirely achievable. I even joke with friends about being willing to accept lower pay to continue working remotely.
This very blog serves as a testament to my coding proficiency, the ability to communicate about workflows and processes, as well as formulating a problem definition. The ultimate goal of software engineering, IMHO, is about communicating ideas, not graphs and cryptic computer codes. I mainly work in the backend side, but is capable of frontend work when absolutely needed. I enjoy learning for its intellectual stimulation, and my former colleagues can speak to my track record of successfully learning and implementing new technologies throughout my career.
A lot of people search for a purpose in life. Monetary compensation is often not the only goal people chase after. My grandfather was a teacher, the impacts he left on his students were clearly felt in his funeral. Like him, I want to leave a legacy where my work truly matters, not just an alphabet soup most people have no idea of. With that in mind, I keep my options open for Python software projects, and to collaborators who value engineers who put care into communicating ideas.
Chinese lunar calendar was mainly used in the past to aid farmers in planning their plantation back then, hence it literally translates to farmers’ calendar. Lunar new year marks the beginning of a new year, usually in spring, and the representative zodiac animal this year is a snake. Hopefully, as the fortune stick says, brighter days will eventually arrive, and spring finally comes.
To ensure this post is as clear and readable as possible, I used AI tools for editorial feedback. The content and opinions remain entirely my own, and if you are seeking a Python engineer who values clear communication and impactful solutions, please feel free to ping me for my resume here on Medium or LinkedIn.
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