my 2023 in review: sad, mad, sad, glad, glad, glad 😓😤🥳!

If 2022 started off great, with career advancement and a substantial salary raise, 2023 showed signs of uncertainty and negative changes ahead already since the very first couple of weeks.
The team I was leading, had been ripped apart by a reorganization and was merged into another team working on a completely different scope and tech stack. Normally I am open to changes, even drastic ones, but since that was the second time in less than a year, I started doubting about my future in the company.
I had been working in the same company for a little more than 9 years ( in different projects and teams ) and all the options of working on interesting projects, having an impact, and changing things for the good seemed now exhausted.
That meant many frustrating months where I was still learning something new, and having fun with the new project but where I grew more and more detached from the company and started looking elsewhere. Luckily I managed to find a great company where I started in December, and thus I can salute this stressful 2023 full of enthusiasm for the challenges awaiting me next year.

Of course, this change had a great impact on my achievements this year, but even if it took a different track than expected I cannot say I am disappointed, and the last quarter was intense and mindblowing.

Let's review my 2023 in detail (the title of the post comes from the Mad Sad Glad Retrospective model):

Career and Professional Growth

GoLang and Fargate

The new project I started working on in February had a Frontend in Unity, and a backend written in Golang running of Fargate. My main responsibility had been rewriting some parts in NodeJs and Serverless, making the core more stable, and most importantly introducing/improving monitoring and observability. That meant that I had to learn a bit of GoLang, work on ECS Fargate, and spend a lot of time fiddling with CloudWatch Metrics Alarms and Dashboards.

From Technical Lead to Engineering Manager

Since the 1st of December, I joined another company as an Engineering Manager for a Platform Team. The role is less hands-on, but since the tech stack is completely different ( Terraform + EKS (running a bit of everything from PHP to Kotlin) instead of AWS CDK + Serverless I am learning a lot of new things. (I still like Serverless more, but EKS is allowing me to gain a different perspective - and the team is focusing more on Infrastructure than product development).

Techstack aside, a lot of challenges in the people management area are waiting for me and I am looking to put my soft skills to the test!
Furthermore, at least for now the main language in the company is German, which means that for the first time since I moved to Hamburg, I will be speaking German most of my day. This will change since the company is growing and we are hiring, but I want to improve my German skills as much and fast as I can.

No AWS Certification, just a couple of badges

My main goal for this year was getting the AWS Solution Architect Associate Certification and since the end of last year I studied quite a lot ( and posted a few write-ups ) but since May when things at work got really worse and I was focusing on finding a new job, I did not have the energy nor the motivation to continue. Still, I used AWS Skill Builder a lot to ramp up my learning in the new teams and managed to get a couple of Readiness Badges.

Public speaking and personal branding

I was renewed as AWS Community Builder for the 2nd year. and I am so grateful and honored to be part of such a great community.
After working on an interesting project to improve DynamoDB usage I wrote an article here on DEV.to and run an online workshop at my company to share the learnings.
I participated as a guest at Logicata Podcast where we discussed the latest news and announcements in the AWS Cloud world. A great experience!

After reading one of my posts on the topic, I was contacted by a writer at Dice.com to contribute to an article on Tech Interviews and how to handle preparation and rejections
I visited WebDay in Milan in March and took part in a panel of AWS Community Builders and Heroes at Web Day Milan. (that was more a friendly conversation streamed live on YouTube and I simply happened to be sitting in the part of the room on the camera side, rather than a planned engagement, still, it was an exciting experience!)
I visited the AWS Summit in Berlin in May and spent some time at the AWS Community Builders/Heroes and UserGroup Lounge to talk about the different programs with other AWS enthusiasts. The summit itself has been an incredible experience, and for the first time I had the opportunity to meet many great Builders and Heroes I had been following or in contact only on Slack for months.

I gave a talk at the AWS Community Day in Munich in September. Needless to say, that was the highlight of my year, my first conference, and an incredible experience. The community is amazing. I talk about the conference and how I prepared for it in this post

Gave the same talk at AWS User Group Hamburg
I wrote 27 posts this year, but I am not happy with the consistency nor with the quality of some of them. (those I am proud of, are probably around the 10...)
On the other hand, a couple of posts got some traction and were featured in the newsletter of Jeremy Daly and the Serverless Picks of Allen Helton.
My post about how I prepared for the AWS Conference was even reposted by Jeff Barr!

Private Life

I have read 14 books this year, not as many as I used to years ago ( when I had no kids, was training less, and had a very long commute!)

Top 3:

Radical Candor - Kim Scott

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter - Liz Wiseman

An elegant Puzzle: System of Engineering Management - Will Larson

Worst:

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert. T. Kiyosaki

attended a First Aid Outdoor course
after a pause of a few years I started donating blood again
finally got the German Citizenship (not a real achievement of mine, more a matter of bureaucracy, but still an important milestone.
I climbed the iconic multi-pitch route Luna Nascente in Val di Mello (360 m, 7 grade, granite) and had the best day ever.

I climbed consistently 3 times a week this year and finally managed to climb a few 8- (6c+) routes
Finished the TK Fit Challenge - a bonus points program organized by my [Medical Insurance where I had to walk 8000 steps a day for 12 weeks. Must say that maintaining that consistency was tough.
in between the 2 jobs I decided to have a short hiatus - where I was supposed to finish learning for the AWS certification, but then, considering how stressful the year had been, and that it was an opportunity that won't happen anytime soon. I decided to spend it traveling and had a great time hiking in Basque Country and La Reunion!

Final considerations

This year has not been easy, I had my share of failures ( I was rejected at more than a bunch of Conferences, I failed embarrassingly a System Design challenge and did not land a job after 5 rounds of interviews and despite having enough time, I did not get the Solution Architect certification.

Furthermore, if I compare my goals with other AWS Builders or Heroes I follow I feel I haven't done much:

Allen Helton

wrote 56 posts
did 31 podcasts
sent 51 newsletters
and 12 conference talks

Luca Mezzalira

did 34 public talks
wrote 25 blog posts
sent 50 newsletters

Yan Cui did not post a review of his year but the amount of posts, talks, and courses he publish is shocking.

I have no idea how people can achieve so much, produce so much content, and - hopefully, still have a life!
Anyway, comparing ourselves with others is never fair and we should do that only to the extent that pushes us to improve and do better and more, not to feel like failures.

I am proud of what I went through and achieved. And even more, I am grateful for everything that happened, and for all the people I met on the way, who inspired me, supported me, and helped me achieve my goals.

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