2023 Year in Review

For years now, I have built my family's Christmas card website in the form of a “Year in Review” for our friends and family to enjoy instead of trying to cram a year's worth of photos and updates onto a tiny postcard. Until this year, though, I had never thought about writing a year in review for myself and my professional life! I saw Aaron Francis post his (you can find it here) and, like most of the developer community does now, I decided to copy him. So this one goes out to you, Aaron.

In 2023, I:

• finished running the first round of the Kirschbaum Apprenticeship Program
• published my first article on Laravel News
• wrote my own Neovim configuration
• became a father for the second time
• met almost all of my coworkers in person at an all-hands retreat
• became the Head of Developer Relations for Filament
• was hired as a Senior Software Developer at Zillow

Overall, it's been a fantastic year with lots of highs and lows, so let's dig into the major events that have happened!

The Main Events

The Kirschbaum Apprenticeship Program

Technically, the Apprenticeship Program began in November 2022, but the first round of the program officially ended at the end of January 2023 with both Apprentices being offered Associate Developer positions at Kirschbaum. I was (and still am) very pleased with how the program went, especially for a first attempt at the company. I had run an Apprenticeship program in the past at a previous employer, but Kirschbaum's program was the first one where everyone was 100% remote, which presented some interesting challenges for us to overcome!

Out of everything that the program accomplished, I am most proud of how well the Mentors took ownership over their Apprentice's learning and success. Going in, I anticipated needing to be much more hands-on with the Mentor/Apprentice pairs, but within the first couple of weeks, the Mentors were already shaping the Apprentices into very competent developers.

I am definitely sad that I won't be at Kirschbaum to see the second round of the Apprenticeship Program begin, but I have no doubt that it will be even better than the first for a few talented Apprentices and their Mentors.

Getting Published on Laravel News

In February 2023, I was getting really, really into Filament. Adam (from the Filament core team) was a recurring viewer of my twice-weekly Twitch streams, and he had convinced me to give it a try. It only took one stream before I was hooked! I almost immediately turned around and wrote a post on my website called “5 Underrated Filament Features”, which did exactly what it said on the tin: it showcased five of my favorite Filament features that I felt didn't get enough of the spotlight.

A few people at work read the post and thought that it was a worthwhile read, and they encouraged me to submit it to Laravel News. I reached out to Eric, and he published my article on the site!

While this isn't a massive achievement for some, for me, this was the beginning of my desire to start creating more persistent (read: non-livestreamed) content for the Laravel community. It's been a slow burn to actually create the content, but as I round out 2023 and come back to this moment, it's very clear that I wouldn't be doing all the things I am now without this little push.

Creating (and Using) My Own Neovim Config

I have been using Neovim as my daily driver code and text editor since late 2021. But until mid-way through the Spring, I had always used some pre-configured Neovim distro. At the time, I was using AstroNvim, but I kept bumping into issues with AstroNvim that made me never want to update anything about the setup. One week, I decided that enough was enough, and on stream, my chat and I set about creating a branch new configuration for me, from scratch.

I had tried a handful of times in the past to pull a configuration together, but for one reason or another, things never really worked out any better than what I already had with AstroNvim. This time; however, I had an ace up my sleeve. A new plugin manager called Lazy had just been brought to my attention, and it seemed to solve a lot of the ease-of-use issues that I had with other plugin managers at the time.

Using Lazy, I set up a Neovim configuration system that I still use to this day to quickly add, manage, and remove plugins as I see fit. What resulted was an unbelievably stable and intuitive Neovim install that has served me well ever since.

Becoming a Father, Again!

In June, my wife gave birth to my son, Nathaniel. He's our second child after his now three-year-old sister, and after having to live through a miscarriage in 2022, having another baby in our arms was an amazing and life-altering experience.

Immediately, life began to look very different. Going from one child to two was a big shift for my wife and I, especially since we were back in the newborn phase all over again. Thankfully, my daughter was instantly infatuated with her new brother, and as he began to recognize more of what was going on in the world around him, he became infatuated with her, too.

It probably goes without saying, but this was easily one of the best parts of my 2023.

Finally Meeting in Person

I worked at Kirschbaum for two full years before I was able to meet the majority of my coworkers in person. We had a small, regional meetup in 2022 where I got to spend a few days with my fellow east-coasters, but in 2023, Kirschbaum decided that it was time to bring the whole team together again. We met for a week in Northampton, and almost the entire team was able to make it.

It's not like I didn't spend a majority of my time all day, every day working and interacting with my coworkers–I did. Even remotely, the Kirschbaum team is a lively bunch that loves working and interacting with each other. However, there's something very different about being in the same room as someone else and have a conversation or eat a meal. These people are some of the best I've ever worked with, so getting to spend intentional time just getting to know them was a major part of my year.

Filament's Head of Developer Relations

Even though this only happened towards the end of the year, looking back, it really felt like this was in the works for much, much longer than that. Dan and I began talking back and forth when I started doing livestreams based on Filament at the beginning of the year, and I've been shilling for Filament since the moment I discovered it! After Dan joined the Kirschbaum team and he and I started bringing Filament to more of the projects within the company, we eventually got to talking about creating content for and involving Filament. I was (and still am!) interested in creating quality video content to help bring developers into the Filament community, and towards the end of the year, Dan reached out to see if I'd be interested in joining the team in an official capacity!

With the launch of Filament v3.1 and after writing the announcement article to go along with it, I was officially added to the core team as the Head of Developer Relations. The end of my year got a little wild with an increase in client work and more time being devoted to the interview process I was going through, but once that all settled down, I began planning! There's lots to come in 2023 from Filament in the content & community areas, like a podcast, videos, and community spotlights, and I'm very excited for all of it!

A New Chapter at Zillow

In the very last days of the year, right before Christmas, I received an offer from Zillow to join their team as a Senior Software Development Engineer. For the month and a half prior, I had been dedicating a lot of time to the interview process, so when I got the news, a massive wave of relief washed over me.

The relief didn't last too long, though, because I had to make what was genuinely the hardest decision of my professional career. I loved working at Kirschbaum and with all of my coworkers there, but at the same time, going into the product sector was something I have been interested in for a while now. After a lot of thought, I accepted the Zillow offer!

While it's definitely difficult to leave Kirschbaum, I am so excited about the opportunity that is ahead of me at Zillow. I get to continue using Laravel to build software, and I get to do it with some incredible engineers and product teams! It will be fun to see the software development process within a product from a first-party point of view, since until this point, I have only ever worked in the agency world.

Looking Ahead to 2024

2023 was a wonderful and busy year for me. It was full of so many unexpected changes, but everything seems to have turned out for the best. There was a lot of work behind the scenes that doesn't really shine through, but needless to say, I'm prepped and ready to go for 2024.

I have a lot of plans to make 2024 the best and most successful year of my life to date, while also making sure that I maintain the delicate balance between work, family life, friends, and hobbies. You can expect to see a lot more from me in the next twelve months, especially regarding Filament and its amazing community!

Overall though, no matter what happens, I'm hopeful for a happy and healthy new year for me and for all of you.

Happy New Year!