2024 Year in Review!

As 2024 comes to a close, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the year. It's been a year of significant growth, both professionally and personally.

Professional Highlights

Projects

This year, I worked on several exciting projects:

E-commerce Platform: Led the frontend architecture for a new e-commerce platform serving 100k+ daily users. We achieved a 40% improvement in page load times through careful optimization.

Design System: Built a comprehensive design system from scratch, complete with documentation and Storybook. This is now used across 5 different products.

Open Source: Made my first significant open source contributions! Contributed to several Bun-related projects and created a few small utilities that others found useful.

Skills Developed

Performance Optimization: Learned a ton about web performance, Core Web Vitals, and how to actually make sites fast
System Design: Started thinking more about architecture and scalability
TypeScript: Became much more proficient with advanced TypeScript patterns
Testing: Finally built a solid testing practice

Personal Growth

Writing

Started this blog! Writing has helped me:

Clarify my thinking
Learn more deeply
Connect with others in the community

Work-Life Balance

Made a conscious effort to improve work-life balance:

Implemented a hard stop at 6 PM
Started exercising regularly (3x per week)
Picked up reading again (finished 12 books!)

Challenges

Not everything was smooth sailing:

Burnout: Hit a rough patch in Q2 where I was working too much. Learned the importance of rest and boundaries.

Imposter Syndrome: Still struggles with this occasionally, but getting better at recognizing it and pushing through.

Saying No: Learned that saying no to some opportunities is necessary to say yes to the right ones.

Lessons Learned

Quality > Quantity: Better to do fewer things well than many things poorly
Ask for Help: Nobody knows everything, and asking for help is a strength
Document Everything: Future you will thank present you
Take Breaks: Rest isn't laziness - it's necessary for sustained performance
Community Matters: Connecting with other developers has been invaluable

Goals for 2025

Looking ahead to 2025:

Professional

Contribute to a major open source project
Speak at a local meetup or conference
Learn Rust (for real this time)
Build and launch a side project

Personal

Write 24 blog posts (2 per month)
Read 20 books
Maintain exercise routine
Learn to cook 10 new recipes

Learning

Deep dive into system design
Master web performance
Learn more about databases
Get better at writing

Thank You

Thanks to everyone who supported me this year - colleagues, friends, family, and the online tech community. Looking forward to 2025!

What were your highlights from 2024? What are you looking forward to in 2025?

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