Hello, World!
I recently applied for a job and was rejected. No problem, you can’t win them all, but it has motivated me to try and improve because I want to feel confident in myself and my abilities. I’ve decided a good way to hold me accountable for continuing to learn and grow is to start a blog where I share content about my weeks learning an achievements. My aim to to reapply for the same company one year from now and perform better than I did this time in the interview process. It’s going to be a long, uncomfortable journey of learning as I’ve basically no experience writing, blogging, or having any sort of presence, but I’m excited to get started and see where it can take me.
Introduction
My name is Jack and I’ve been a mobile developer for over 10 years. The year 2023 has just begun and I’m doing a bit of a self evaluation and trying to work out what I want to do in the future. I currently work as a senior iOS developer at a company I really enjoy working for, but I’m looking for things I can do to keep improving and progressing in life, both professionally and personally.
Setting goals
My first step has been to set myself some goals for this year to give myself some direction. I have read a post from Antoine van der Lee talking about setting yourself engineering goals for the year and this is the format I’m going to try and follow, and now let me tell you those goals.
1. Write a blog to learn as a developer and create an online presence
- Post one article per week on something iOS related, whether it’s code, tools or anything!
- Gain 100 followers on a social media platform by posting content related to iOS development
- Spend 4 hours a week dedicated to writing content, and learn how to write meaningful content.
The main point of this goal is to improve my engagement within the iOS community. I feel writing a blog will hold me accountable for learning new things, sharing ideas with others and being able to meet new developers. I think all of these things can help me learn and grow as a developer.
2. Release a side project
- Release an app to the App Store with my personal developer account
- Get 1000 downloads of the application
A side project is a way for me to learn about any technologies I want to within iOS development. I believe creating this project along with doing interview preparation challenges will provide the main content for my blog. The aim of the project is not to make money, but to teach me more about iOS development, learning best practices, new technologies and how to effectively maintain and improve an application.
Until next week
All that remains for me now is do get coding! I’m going to begin my side project this week, and next weeks article will talk about my progress.
iOS Explorer 