Recursing: step 0

2023-10-30

Yesterday was my last day as “Happily Unemployed” (felicemente disoccupato).

Roughly 4 months ago I resigned. I was close to reaching 9 years of growth and joys and sorrows (of life, one would say) at the same company. It has been a very nice percorso (a better word is camino from Spanish, 'path' comes in third). I have met a number of beautiful people there. It was time for a change.

Shortly before resigning I watched an interview of Salvatore Sanfilippo where he states the following four rules that have helped him conduct himself throughout the years (my wording):

  1. Nulla die sine linea: do not let a day pass without writing a line of code. Meaningful code that takes your project forward. If you consistently do this (e.g. for 2 hours a day for years) you can move mountains.
  2. Technical Excellence: I should strive for going deep on the topic I am working on. For example, if I work with Deep Learning I should be able to compute derivative of the error of activation functions, I should be able to write a neural network from scratch and not only being able to use the framework (which I should use when doing actuall stuff).
  3. Work on something that matters: find places who write code that is important, try to stay in teams with people that are better than you
  4. Be a decent human being: you should always give credit to others for everything they have given to you. If an idea comes from someone else, say it in the meeting. If someone is doing something wrong and it is not that important, do not mention it. If it is important maybe write an email in private with kind tones.

These rules look like a nice tool for thought to keep in mind.

This last month of October, actually this last 4 weeks of being happily unemployed, have been a special period. I focused on resting, taking care of myself and my family and prepare for the next steps. I have met even more people through some wonderful tech communities. I was surprised by how many things you have to do when you do not actually have anything you really have to do. Of course I planned for more than I could chew, took a hit and realized I should just enjoy this period. I did. This last week was nothing short of amazing.

Today I start recursing.

I will say more about that, but the most practical matter at the moment is that I will need to change my schedule. I will have to be working with other people mostly in the late afternoon and in the evening. This is the first challenge.

Have a good day y’all! 😊