So, I quit my developer job last year. That was almost half a year ago. The decision came after close to 10 years of continuous full-time employment in the industry. I had nothing new lined up, no concrete plans. I just felt deep in my bones that I needed a change and knew that itch was not going away any time soon.
Arguably, the timing of this decision was not ideal, to put it mildly. It came amidst the massive layoffs wave, ‘year of efficiency’ announcements, and general uncertainty in the job market.
Naturally, such decisions are never taken lightly. Neither was this one. Luckily, my life situation was such that quitting from one day to the other was in fact an option.
After the initial period of soul searching (which is a more poetic term for ‘I just want to do nothing for a while right now and I will figure out the rest once I am bored of being idle’), I decided to start coding again. But this time, on my own terms, at my own pace.
Initially, I decided to let curiosity be my guide. I needed to challenge myself and expand my horizons, learn new things beyond the typical Android projects I’ve been mostly working on in recent years. Worst case scenario, I reckoned, I will have learned new skills and maybe written a blog post or two about it. On top of that, I wanted to prove to myself that I could carry out a non-trivial project on my own, from start to finish, way past the honeymoon period.
One thing led to another, and something that was supposed to be but a small, insignificant cog in the machinery of the original project (broadly speaking, behavioural biometrics and machine learning), turned out to be a whole fascinating universe in its own right. A universe I got sucked into ever since.
I afforded myself a few months to work on the core technology, learn (and learn I did a lot), and see where the path leads. Over time, a dream (what’s a less dramatic word than ‘dream’? Hope? Ambition? Delusion? … ) of holding the reins of my life got rekindled, it saw its opportunity and snuck back in to take over. I decided to try to make it on my own, even if I did not know exactly how.
The truth is, I still don’t. Which makes me as excited as it makes me anxious.
I figured such attempts are not commonplace (not in my bubble anyhow) and the stories we ever hear about are those of moderate-to-spectacular successes, conveniently omitting the hills of self-doubt and the numerous dead-ends. I, on the contrary, would like to offer you the inside view of what might well turn into a beautiful catastrophe, unfolding right in front of your eyes. (A spectacular success would be preferable though.)
As you might have noticed by now, my dear reader, concrete, technical details of the project are left out- a conscious decision by yours truly. The last thing I want for this article, and the ones that will follow, is to turn into yet another ‘How-to’ programming blog post that becomes irrelevant in a few short months. Ideally, the contents of this series (and I promise, it is going to be a series!), will go beyond any one technology and have the potential to be relatable no matter where your spotlight is at the time of reading. It is meant to be a written record of an attempt at being independent. Another reason to be technology-agnostic is the fact I might need to pivot along the way. Finding the right project to focus on is also a part of the story.
While at it, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with similar ventures (not just the successful ones).
Stay tuned for part two.
The future was wide open
Leave a Reply