It all began with my following dev.to post dated September 16, 2017. It’s when I turned curious around this question to get an understanding and plan for my own engineering career roadmap.

While agreeing with the contextual answer on my post, I’d like to share some of my own experiences.

In my opinion, a senior software engineer is who has the potential to unblock other team members and can lead with empathy, while giving the right direction to other team members.

Also, I’ve noticed by showing confidence in, sharing knowledge, and occasionally challenging your team members with interesting problems that add value to the company leads to a healthy work culture while generating growth opportunities for all.

• You’ll get to network with some of the best minds in tech, and leadership,
• You’ll get to work on cutting edge technologies,
• You’ll be paid well,
• You’ll embrace diversity,

By the time you step out of it or asked to leave, you might end up wanting more from yourself.

You might be left with a feeling or a sense of confidence that you can do a lot more with your time than ever before.

Oh! one more thing, “there’s no place for emotions”.

In this post, I will be talking about my experience of stepping down a role in the career ladder to be able to re-live the fun (Problem-solving).

I’ve been blessed enough to have worked for two corporate organizations, and two startups where I was the initial employee and in my second shot I got to lead a team of 4 engineers at the age of 27. Although, I do believe that age is just a number. However, the point I wish to bring your focus on is that it’s not necessary for everyone to be enjoying a higher role. No disrespect to the ones who are leading teams of any size. I’m only trying to put my own experience here when I started performing the job of a team lead.

I was really turning disinterested to slowly stop solving issues/bugs and start delegating and get serious about projects milestones. I care about the product. However at this stage of life, I really enjoy creating them instead of taking care of them. I do believe it is necessary for any creator to maintain the code-bases they once wrote in smaller team sizes.

In my defense, the code-bases I got to write weren’t perfect yet they were written with a lot of consideration and keeping robustness, scalability, and quality in mind. The problem arises when a product based company becomes stable and under a well-drafted process.

When the major contributors are made the leads it instantly becomes a choice for them to either lead a team that takes the seed way ahead in scalability or to find more problems to solve.

When I was given a chance to lead a team, in my opinion, I did perform the job of satisfying the milestones of the project and getting things done of around 6 months. Where I started noticing that I wasn’t really enjoying my work and found myself disinterested in leadership. Rather, used to wait for other engineers to come up to me with interesting problems to solve.

With time, my team became independent, Since, I was mentored by my mentor to become self-sufficient and independent in problem finding and solving. That’s all I had to replicate within my team.

One fine day my friend noticed me sitting in the corner discreetly when he asked what’s wrong with you? To which I had no answer. Since I was under the impression that leading a team was the-next-step for me in my career.

To which he instantly replied saying Ashish find some other job. A request I instantly rejected. The feeling of fun was still missing and when I came back home met my friend over the weekend where he instantly, suggested me to meet some folks from a company he worked with on some cool project lately.

When your inner circle notices something and brings it in front of you, time to self introspect.

It was a surprise recommendation that came in through my friend while I was driving him back home. It was interesting how in a split second I replied to him “tell me more”.

From there on I got into interviews with 3 companies and got selected for 2 after rejecting one which I couldn’t find to be the perfect fit for me.

Then I was asked this amazing question by the recruiter why do you want to join us as a senior software engineer as you’ve been leading a team at your current organization. To which my answer was simple. I feel I am too young for it. I deserve to get more experience and need to learn from people much better than me which I believe your company can provide me.

That was my transition from a Team lead to a Senior Software Engineer. I’m not saying leadership isn’t my thing. All I’m trying to say is that there’s always a way to get back on what you really love doing and If you really think there’s more for you to learn, never regret letting go an opportunity coming early at your doorstep.

If you wish to read something similar about management:

17 REASONS NOT TO BE A MANAGER https://charity.wtf/2019/09/08/reasons-not-to-be-a-manager/

Broke? (Basics)

• work! Get a job!

Write a kindle ebook

• epic write (words)
• Fivrr (Book cover)
• Marketing (DIY)

Affiliate marketing

• Checkout clickbank
• Checkout amazon associates

Lease

• Got spare parking spaces or boat moorings? (kerb.works)
• Got a spare room? (AirBnB)

Advertising

• Write blog posts.
• Brand deals/ Sponsorship (social bluebook)

Create online courses

• Teachable
• Udemy

Invest in the stock market (*at your own risk)

• Index funds
• Lifecycle funds
• Individual stocks
• Div stocks

Royalties

• Music: apple music, spotify
• Photo/Video: shutterstock,
• App/Tech: theme forest

In this post, I’m going to jot down a few facts about “financial freedom”.

As Dave Ramsey, repeats his golden steps of ending financial miseries:

1. Clear all your debts first.
2. Save up for emergency funds.
3. Save by paying yourself first.

The world of financial freedom awaits!

How to grow your assets even further?

Invest your money, wisely! Understand the meaning of compounding.

Note:

Avoid online/offline impulsive buying.

Understand the true meaning of assets and liabilities.

That’s it! simple, isn’t it?​

Start planning for a better future of yourself and for your loved ones. Feel free to share your experience or wisdom, if I forgot to add something you already know to make it simple in the comments.

I have been working professionally on and off between corporate and start-ups. Then I got an opportunity to work remotely for 2 years. In my opinion, I found remote work to be the sweet spot between working for a company and working for self.

Let me explain.

I’m 27 years old, a curious soul and seeking meaning in my own process of work-life balance.

At my first company, I got to learn how to speak with clients, the art of writing emails addressing to juniors till chief executives. The moment I was kept on a bench I realized it wasn’t me.

Without giving it much of a thought I moved into a very small company of hardly 5–10 people, where I got in touch with a start-up which eventually offered me a role full-time. Where I impressed the hell out of the founders with my work and then somehow my resume floated in the tech market and got a generous offer to work with smarter people with higher potential to mentor me.

Avoiding the maintenance work I moved back into corporate where my speed of progress slowed down. However, I came to realize I began writing scalable and efficient code.

Looking at which my bosses who started their own company eventually hired me to work remotely in their start-up where I became interdisciplinary with programming skills. I saw myself moving back and forth the backend (platform), frontend (website), cross-platform mobile applications, and QA automation. Also, got to mentor/lead a successful global team of 4 forward with empathy, kindness, challenging and a humble outlook.

Now, I will be moving back into corporate, working remotely to solve problems in the field of big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Looking at the pattern of my career I realized that currently, remote work is where I found my sweet spot. These days it is easier to find remote jobs where the company trusts its employees with their work instead of micro-managing their employees.

Just like working for yourself:​

Remote work becomes a similar “workstyle” where you are self-motivated, aware of the dos and don’ts. Responsible for your actions and just know, how to get things done. Basically, taking ownership of your work.

Realize the importance of communication and how it is the blood for working remotely. I do not agree with people who are suggesting one has to be around their employees physically to grow into a leadership role. While working remotely, how Jeff Bezos said: “why it’s always Day 1 at Amazon” makes a lot of sense.

These days most of my friends work remotely so I hardly feel left alone. Rather, I get to talk with others about various problems they are trying to solve lately.

I believe in minimalism so I hardly ever wanted to wear cool new fashionable clothes for society or coworkers.

Despite working remotely I hardly find time for myself which is something I am constantly working on. I enjoy my work so much that weekend goes by slowly.

Just recently I wrote this to understand recursive functions and multi parentheses after a function call.

Application?

Can be useful if we use multiple tags on something.

Want to learn more about Dynamic programming?

Recommendations: VisualGo, GeeksForGeeks.

The **filter()** method creates a new array with all elements that pass the test implemented by the provided function. — Source

I grew up in New Delhi, India where I spent 25 years. I’ll be honest, I miss my city a lot. However, due to many reasons, I left my convenient, easy lifestyle and somehow the need for simplicity brought me down here in a small city Vadodara, Gujarat. I believe to some extent I’m following the geo-arbitrage concept.

Honestly, in the time span of three and a half months, I have noticed a lot of little things we fast-paced city guys never give a deep thought over.

To list a few:

Mystical bond kids have with their parents.

I’ve noticed kids are closer to their parents, and likewise. Parents tend to give freedom when the environment for their kids appear to be more on a safer side. Leads to a healthier upbringing in my opinion.

New languages.

I come across people who prefer talking in Gujarati and Marathi languages other than Hindi. At first, I used to feel like bonkers! what the hell are they talking about? These days I just tend to get an idea where the conversation is heading. Never the less, most of the times I just ask. Funny, one can best judge a new place on basis of how the natives react when you ask for some translations.

People are slow and relaxed.

Small city people have a simple lifestyle. Most of them aren’t really in the “rat race”. Talking about fulfilment, I believe they know what they are doing.

For a newcomer, it takes a little while to appreciate especially if you are coming from a fast-paced big city. It’s actually as simple as a litmus test, you can either bear it(adjust) or just end up packing your bags and leave the very next moment.

Dry state effect: the good, the bad, and, the ugly.

Apparently, I chose a limited edition dry state out of the remaining 28 states of India. I know right? At first, I was like no way! I’m a Punjabi guy I cannot live without alcohol running down my gut every weekend.

Now, I embrace the fact that I’m not. There’s always one addiction though, talking about addictions I tried smoking for a while and realised quite early on that it’s just not my thing. When I run the numbers I save some bucks on such recreational methods.

I miss my favourite economical clothing brand though i.e. H&M.

Weekends are horrible. Weekdays are fun! you guessed it right this is the ugly part. I’m trying to do what others over here do for leisure and entertainment. Watching movies, eat good food. Oh Boy! the food over here is good and value for money.

Little things.

Girls feel safer late at night out in the streets. I being a guy used to avoid going out for a walk or a run late at night in Delhi myself.

Silence, people don’t honk much on the streets. I guess maybe my place is blessed with silence and decency around noise pollution.

It’s one of the least polluted areas of India one thing I take pride in.

Welcoming neighbours, I tell you honestly whenever I run out of groceries and feeling lazy on the top of it. My doorbell magically rings with food on the other end.

Lastly, if you are new in Vadodara, Gujarat, India or some new place in the world, feel free to share your experiences. I’d love to hear/read them in the comments.

Dear Reader,

A happy new year to you and your family.

I’m in a phase of my life where apart from just getting better in computer science, it has been a massive one for self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-improvement for me.

TL;DR?

Read this instead.

I’ve gained knowledge in or mastered:

Cooking

All thanks to my friend’s mom. I got to learn the basics. Then I gave it a spin in my own lab(Kitchen) I’ll be honest, initially, the output or results were simply horrible yet I kept admiring it even then. I guess iteration concept worked out well and now I know how to cook a decent breakfast, lunch, and dinner for myself. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with oregano, makes my meals interesting with some cheese.

Financial literacy

Read 4 books Rich dad poor dad, Unshakable, The Total Money Makeover, and Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics**.** I found these to be enough for starters to understand the topic and an article that I was able to understand after going through all 4 books mentioned here.

Living alone

Oh boy! Here’s a kicker, I work remotely so I planned on moving out of Delhi (Dil waalon ki Dilli) and moved to Vadodara, Gujarat. After 2 months of getting the essentials in place. One fine night post-dinner I just realized the progress I’ve made so far, how I went from nothing to everything(mostly) all by myself and some help from my friend(TBH).

The first 2–3 weeks were horrible I’ll be honest, but then you get into the vibe of living alone. You get to understand so many things and concepts about stuff you’ve never ever focused upon.

10 Km Run

So the city I’m living in currently is a dry state(Alcohol is banned). I’m a Punjabi guy for whom alcohol consumption over weekends is a casual affair. However, after living here for over 3 months, I came to realise there are so many things in life you can do instead of just going out with friends and party over weekends. Out of which one single example is 10 Km run I completed recently in 1 hour 43 minutes approx. I know it isn’t really any close to a record but hey a 10 km run in a single go. There are so many other things like reading stuff you love to learn more about. Watching Netflix and TV series is not really my thing I call it a cheat night if I tend to do it. I mean come on! I cannot completely ignore it.

Travel abroad

Oh Oh! I finally got an opportunity to travel out of India for the first time. It made me realize a different aspect of life as a traveler. After 17–18 hours of the journey(one side). From passing out at Airport terminals, and the cab drives to trying new cuisines. It was something new.

I’ve still got a dream of experiencing a decent beach somewhere in the world.

Thank you 2018 and Hello 2019!